


A different disguise

by AnotherLoser



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angry Peter, Angst, Depression, Dissociation, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kidnapping, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Paranoia, Peter Parker Whump, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective May Parker (Spider-Man), Protective Tony Stark, Rating May Change, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-02-28 10:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 39,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13269966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnotherLoser/pseuds/AnotherLoser
Summary: It’s been two months since anyone last saw Peter Parker, and almost six weeks since they saw Spider-Man.





	1. Chapter 1

It’s been two months since anyone last saw Peter Parker, and almost six weeks since they saw Spider-Man.

Peter disappeared almost right after school.  There was another video of Spider-Man posted online as he stopped a purse thief.  An hour later he sent a message to Ned Leeds about going to the movies the next day as long as no buildings get blown up.  By nightfall Ned was confused. By morning May Parker was ready to call the police if only she could explain why she wasn’t all that concerned about her nephew coming back extraordinarily late.  She called Ned first, who had her call Happy Hogan, who eventually connected her to Tony Stark.

The suit he designed to keep the stubborn boy safe was quickly discovered to not be functioning.  Tracker shut down, no signals emitting from the tech.  Either it was broken beyond repair or someone with impressive skills with technology shut it all down completely.

“How can it just be shut down?!” May protested, her hair pulled into a ponytail loose and sticking up in a variety of angles from her continuing to try and run her hands through it.

“All technology can be shut down, that’s why power outages suck.”  Tony answered as calmly as he could.  Ever since he tried to speak to her in person it had been a mess of a day.  Her stress on top of his own didn’t make it easy to focus and his best bet was to compartmentalize; put the concern away for the time being and treat it like a mission.  May did not have that ability however and it took everything he had not to ask her to just be quiet or better yet, leave until he had news.  Trying to be nice to the guardian of the missing boy - whom he promised her he would keep safe - is what left him answering a variety of dumb questions he didn’t need to think about, but she did have all of the information he could possibly want about Peter’s life outside of his heroics.  “When someone steals a phone they take the battery out if they have the slightest clue what they’re doing. If it isn’t on it doesn’t send a signal, it’s essentially just a box of circuits.  The suit doesn’t have a battery but it has to have a power source like anything else built in so either someone found it and turned it off or it’s been blown to pieces.”

Despite his efforts, Tony’s choice of words needed work.

Eventually the security cameras in the city painted an incredibly vague picture of Peter’s last evening.  A large majority of the footage included nothing more than some of Peter’s lowest swings as he flies through the street, leaving him a blur on the frame-by-frame.  Not every building had cameras but enough did to give a decent map by the end of it. The last shot was just after he stopped a car thief. Something grabbed his attention and when he walked out of frame that was the end of it. Nothing else caught him ever since. The suit’s tracking went out three minutes later, giving no clearer image of where he was going or why. For all intensive purposes, Peter Parker has vanished into thin air.

Two weeks later a video taken with an old Android phone was spread around on the internet. Peter was in his suit, surprisingly. When reviewing the footage in detail Tony and Ned both separately noticed flashes of exposed skin where it had been cut and torn in what they could only assume were more battled like this one since he disappeared. It ended at quickly as it began; starting with Spider-Man climbing up a wall with three masked and armed men chasing him, and ending when one got a chain looped around his ankle. It was thick and heavy metal but Peter should have been able to break it. Malnutrition however, Tony reasoned, could lead to quickly weakening his body’s enhancements. That on top of whatever else he had been through up until that point allowed the young boy to be dragged across the concrete while scrambling for a hold, flailing in his struggle and at least being difficult enough that all three men had to gather to get a hold of him in the corner of the frame, already having drifted mostly out of view to avoid being identified even with their masks on.

The search of everything nearby didn’t do much besides give Tony something to stare at when he couldn’t sleep- Peter’s mask with it’s eyes removed and a tear along the back with a blood stain that leads him to believe it was cut off of the boy’s head carelessly. The thing was filthy anyway with dirt and scrapes and smelled of rust and sweat. Wherever he was, Peter hasn’t been wearing anything besides what he was captured in.

He doesn’t tell May that he found it.

The next time he’s spotted is by Ned Leeds on his way to school.

Ned had always been able to sympathize with Peter’s way of thinking, but he admits that in many ways he never understood him until recently. It had always seemed ridiculous just how much he worried for others- not that Ned didn’t as well, the difference was merely that he could see when it was and wasn’t his place to be invested whereas Peter did not. Peter had a habit of carrying the entire world on his shoulders even before he became Spider-Man. He behaved as if his aunt’s mental health was his responsibility, always looking out for how much he said or showed her in case she got worse by worrying about him, and he had a way of being that way with anyone regularly in his life to lesser but still present extents. If Peter found out something made you uncomfortable, he would avoid it around you like the plague and never forget what that thing was or why. He cared more than most teenagers.

Ned always thought it was sweet, but a little ridiculous. No one should worry that much. Now he found himself walking on eggshells around May. He’s been keeping in touch with her, just like his parents have been, everyone worried about Peter and how she was doing without him. She looked ready to throw herself under a bus if she wasn’t waiting for confirmation as to wether or not her nephew was alive. Ned wonders if she would make it even a day if they found out he was dead.  
He wonders how well he would manage when as it is, he feels like Peter was the only optimism in his life and now he was gone. Michelle helped, but she wasn’t known for her positivity. The silent moral support was appreciated, but not nearly the same.

Last week he thought he heard Peter’s laugh in the hall. Understandably, after that seeing him attached to the wall of a bakery on the way to school is reason to doubt his eyes. But then he does a double take, meeting bright eyes almost hidden by the shadows and it feels so real it can’t be anything else. He starts towards him, feet moving before he can think to make them, and just like they Peter was vanishing again. Cloaked in baggy black clothes that Ned doesn’t think belonged to him before, he scurries into darkness more like a spider than he ever seemed in the heroic suit. The sight is something that settles dread deep into his stomach and will haunt him in his sleep for some time.

Two days later May calls to tell him a similar story when she’d been on the way home from work and saw him in an alleyway, dressed the same way Ned remembered from his own encounter. May didn’t see him on a wall however but instead sat on the fire escape of their building swinging his legs like he always used to when he needed to think. He ran when she called his name and there was no trace left by the time she made it up.

She called Tony right after Ned - after receiving confirmation it wasn’t her imagination if the boy had also seen this version of her nephew - only to be met with the grain of salt she hadn’t wanted to hear. He had a point, protesting that they could have both just been missing the young hero too much. She snapped at him like she did when Peter had first gone missing and she was ready to take an axe to anyone in her way of looking for him.  
Tony sighs and asks, “Do you realize how difficult it will be to tell one teenager in a black hoodie from any other?” Despite how genuinely afraid he is of May Parker kicking through any of the glass doors to his home.  
“Do you realize what I’m willing to do for my boy? I was supposed to look out for him, Tony, I’m supposed to take care of him but I can’t do that right now! I don’t have the power to do that right now and you might not either but you at least have more than me.”  
He can’t argue with her, but his point remains and it was the only thing stopping him from flying out the window and searching manually once again. “I can’t promise anything.”

As expected, he doesn’t find anything near the locations mentioned to him.

What comes instead is an alert the next evening that something larger than a bird was attached to his window. By the time Tony was up and running towards it all he could see was Peter’s foot as he scrambled up the side of the building.

It didn’t make sense. His visits tell show that he is alive, even physically well- at least enough to move as quickly as he does and make impressive leaps through the city without injury. That said enough for Tony to wonder what was keeping him away. Wherever he had been, whatever had been done to him, he was free of it now and yet he didn’t come home. Didn’t ask for help- didn’t even stay long enough to make a single sound. He lingered until caught and then disappeared again, which also prompted the question of why he let himself be seen at all. For all they know he’s been in town again for a month, even more, and merely remained in hiding by choice. He had the ability, Tony knew that much. It was strategic to let them see him, he just didn’t know why.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not gonna lie, writing this would go so much faster if I had something to listen to while I do it but I have no idea how to find songs that'll make me think of this story. That being said, I do have a decent amount of plans for this so do expects updates as often as I'm able to get them out and please keep the feedback coming! Honestly I'm going to be surprised by some of the events here just as much as you are. Thanks for the kudos and comments on the first chapter also, that was majorly encouraging to actually pursue the story instead of leaving it all mysterious.

It still didn’t feel right stealing. It never would, not to Peter, but he needed to maintain some level of strength. When his stomach growls he thinks of plates of food left on cold, filthy concrete for him to find in the maze. Even his captors figured out enough about him to know they couldn’t starve him like they could a normal person. He wasn’t about to be even dumber than they were, and so he continues snatching groceries left in trunks when two trips are required of the owners.

The police have already been called once about the suspected homeless thief invading such a nice neighborhood. They found nothing; Peter takes what he needs and goes quite some time.

The sliced bread he bites into is moist, almost as if it were fresh thanks to the plastic packaging. If he had butter too it would taste like childhood to him; plain white bread with salted butter like he used to eat when he was eight. His uncle told him it was unhealthy and never approved, but May never minded and so he usually had it while watching tv before Ben came home from work.

The lack of butter ruins the nostalgia almost as much as the smell of rain, the latter bringing entirely different memories, some good and some bad. He doesn’t want to dwell so much on his past. Thinking about those things too much as of late made him feel like he was dreaming, disconnected from everything around him until even the city he’s grown up in didn’t look quite familiar. During those times he lives in the past for an unknown amount of time only to enter what he thinks of as a waking dream. He’s pretty sure there is a real name for it, but he doesn’t remember if he ever knew it.

The sounds of the city are a nice distraction. He misses the Spider-Man mask filtering the stimuli though. Be it visuals or sound, the reason he needed it even more than just to conceal his identity was to keep him from being overwhelmed.  
Now he can hear it all. See it all. He's glad not to have his web shooters knowing that swinging through the city without protection would only end with him huddled in an alley or on a roof shaking until he could slow his mind down. Maybe not so quickly before but now? Peter has no doubts.

[...]

Tony doesn't come to this part of town. There wasn’t a lot of reason to leave his home to begin with, never mind go all the way out to Queens for a sandwich in a tiny shop that lets their cat roam freely. Peter liked the place though, he apparently came almost every day according to Ned.

Under normal circumstances he would at least be eating inside; given who he was even before he became Iron Man it was only a matter of time before photos would be taken galore. Peter didn’t go inside any buildings now, however, and the only way to be spotted by him was to be out in the open. It wasn’t a very solid plan and he’s already been reminded of that by three people in three completely separate conversations, but clearly Tony is on the right track when he spots a hooded figure crouched on a rooftop across the street.

Peter doesn’t stay long, just like with his last three appearances, but at least he sat still long enough.

The next attempt is less successful. The boy apparently didn’t want to come to the same place twice, and Tony ends up having to shove through a crowd like he begrudgingly expected.

He watches camera feeds at home again. Peter knew how to avoid them. He doesn’t know what to tell May anymore, as if he ever really did since this began.

He looks at the weathered mask he found weeks ago in the street and remembers when the boy said he wanted to be like Tony. He already was; the determination, stubbornness, how quickly he learned and quite frankly Tony wondered why he wasn’t already testing out of his classes to move through school faster. Also like Tony now, he’s been taken hostage to be likely tortured. The difference is that for Peter the motive is lost, and he didn’t seem to have any interest in pretending to be okay.  
He used to do so regularly. Most people couldn’t see it, Tony admits that he himself missed it for the majority of their few face to face interactions, but it was there all the same. Peter Parker was too much like Tony for his own good. Up until now the man thought that he might already be the better version in the making, but he isn’t sure who was better off at the moment. 

He wonders if he should have been around more or less- even after Toomes, Tony wasn’t the easiest man to reach. He kept his tabs on Peter but he had other things to worry about and the kid had decided to go on his own path instead of becoming an Avenger, there wasn’t much for Tony to offer him to help with that. After all, the entire point of the suit was the fact he had not a single doubt that Peter would keep crime fighting with or without assistance. He would make his own way, go through his own struggles alone. Tony simply wanted to try and keep unnecessary injuries and complications out of the way, and if he took it a little too far with the list of features he won’t acknowledge it.

On the other hand though, being around Peter would only bring more attention to him. Perhaps it would have been even worse if he was keeping a closer eye.

Wondering about what could or should have been done differently didn't help anyone.  
Tony looks back at the holographic screens and sighs.

[...]

For as intelligent as Tony Stark was, he didn’t seem to grasp what Peter was trying to do. He isn’t think it was too difficult to understand, but clearly the hints were going over everyone’s heads. All he wanted was to know that they were all alive and unharmed, and for them to know he was free as well. Okay would be a reach, but he was alive and no longer in strange men’s hands. That was good enough.

Peter been watching over everything since his return to Queens; he watches Ned go to school, May go to work, comes back around in the evening to be sure they each made it home. He listens to crime and twitches with the urge to jump down and help. He can’t find it within himself to take action again though. He doesn’t know what good he would even be in the shape he was in.

Less often given the distance he has to travel Peter also looks out for Tony. He shouldn’t have let himself be spotted the first time Tony came looking for him though. All that did was encourage him, and if he made it too often a habit he might be shot in the street simply for being who he is and being out in the open- so far with no security. Tony had never been big on rules, he's aware, but it seemed like he was afraid of scaring Peter off by allowing anyone to know what he was doing. Hopefully staying out of sight the second and third time will be enough to discourage this idea of his.

Peter is at least grateful for the fact that May and Ned didn't seem to know either. He didn't hang around enough to listen to their conversations, all he knew was that Tony was the only one sitting around in places he thinks Peter might want to be. That wasn't the point to his watchfulness, after all. He didn't care what they were doing, didn't need to know any of the details. All he wanted was to make sure the people who captured him didn't have anyone he knew on their radar.

Looking over the city in the middle of one overcast afternoon, he wonders absently if he would have come back at all if it weren't for the nagging in the back of his mind that those men were still alive and well. A part of him wanted them dead. Another knew that such thoughts were not Peter's but what they turned him into, and for that reason alone he cannot listen.

A shout on the street below breaks him from his thoughts. Looking down Peter can see two figures, one likely pointing a gun at the other to crowd them into the alley to his left. The timing is so convenient he almost thinks it was a trap. It very well could be. Everything could. His hands clench on the edge of the building.

He stops several feet behind and above the one with the gun. The victim being mugged was a skinny young man that shook, but refused to listen despite the threat on his life. Peter sticks his arm out and waves it behind the criminal's head until the boy's eyes catch him. Another gesture then, asking him to crouch down silently. When he does Peter is already flying through the air. The gun goes off as it's owner is knocked into a brick wall. Peter holds him in place with a foot to his chest, grips his wrist and twists until the weapon falls to the floor and the criminal shouts in pain.

Disarmed he bares no threat. Peter strikes him with a fist across the face, easily knocking the assailant unconscious and letting him drop to the ground. He then slides the gun across to the young man still crouched down like he'd been advised and jumps back onto the wall to make his leave.

"The paper says you might be dead." He hears the stranger call after him. Peter only hesitates a moment.

That night he hears the news in Ned's room reporting Spider-Man's mysterious and confusing possible return.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At some point the chapters will be longer and have less jumps but right now this is what I have ahahhhhh

_"--Does this signal the return of the Spider-Man?"_

Tony's heart stops in his chest. Pepper had turned the tv on, he had simply been in the room by accident, passing through with a bottle of water she'd shoved into his hand just a minute before. Silence fills the room and for a moment Tony thinks he was blocking it all out, but a glance to the screen finally shows him she'd hit pause and began to rewind.

_"No matter how you feel about the Spider-Man, everyone has been wondering where the neighborhood 'wall-crawler' has been for the past few months. A young man tonight however claims to have been rescued by Spider-Man when being held at gunpoint. Twenty-one year old Evan Ludwig called the police this afternoon to report an attempted robbery, but when the police arrived they were lead by Evan into an alleyway where his attacker was unconscious. Ludwig was walking back from lunch with his brother when he'd been cornered by the man who remains currently unnamed, and just a minute later he spotted another man attached to the wall of the alleyway. He was told to duck and by the time he opened his eyes, the criminal was dropping to the floor and Spider-Man was leaping back onto the wall to leave without a trace. Ludwig claims that not only was the typically chatty hero completely silent, but he also wasn't even masked and instead wore nothing but a black hood and dark jeans. So what does this mean for our neighborhood hero? What sent him into hiding? And does this signal the return of Spider-Man?"_

Pepper is looking over her shoulder at him. He can see a dozen questions and ideas already stirring in her head but none are voiced, and he doesn't prompt them to be. Tony is too busy wondering what on Earth Peter Parker was trying to do.

[...]

"Where's Peter?" Ned just about jumps out of his skin when Michelle approaches with a question. She was the only person he knew that could move as silently as Peter. They were both going to be the death of him one day. And that was before one went missing.  
"What makes you think I know more now than I did a month ago?"  
"He and Spider-Man went missing at the same time. Spidey's back, I'm guessing Peter is too. So where?" He can't read her. Her shoulder hits the locker beside Ned's carelessly and her expression is as impossible as ever. She could be speaking in code, saying she knows that they were one in the same carefully in case someone might overhear. Or, alternatively, she assumed there was a connection but has yet to make that one just yet. Peter did have a knack of trouble and a streak of horrid luck- it wasn't hard to believe that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ned suspects in fact that anyone who knew anything about Peter thought that that was the case, and those who didn't thought it was merely a coincidence in timing.

"I really don't know. I wish to hell and back that I did but I don't." There's silence for a moment. Michelle squints at him, but she seems to buy it and nods once- maybe even solemnly. Neither of them say a word for another minute. Ned doesn't look at her when he breaks. "You barely even talked to us outside of decathlon practice. Just kind of hovered sometimes? And I still don't know if that was on purpose or not."  
She pauses. "What's your point?"  
"Why are you so worried about him?"  
"Bad things happen to people who go missing. Peter doesn't deserve that." Ned wants to cry. Out of everyone he's ever known Peter deserved whatever happened to him the least.

Michelle nudges his shoulder. "What are you thinking?"  
He shrugs. "You're right. He doesn't deserve that. He doesn't deserve anything that's happened to him before either but it keeps happening and I really want to know what fucked up deity is controlling karma and when they're finally going to give back to him, because at this rate he might not survive it any longer."  
She isn't leaning on the locker anymore. Michelle stands straight up, gaze locked onto Ned as he speaks and finally he sees a tell; she was serious now, taking him seriously, and ready to listen. He doesn't think he's seen her like this to such an extent - and in his defense it was rather subtle to an onlooker - but he picks up on it all the same and her silence only backs him up.

"It's not my story to tell.." He sighs regardless. Peter didn't lie about where he came from, what happened to his family. It felt wrong regardless to talk about his struggles behind his back- but where was he to tell it? Michelle crosses her arms and lets her brow furrow slightly. "His parents died in a plane crash when he was like five, his aunt and uncle took him in even though according to him they never wanted kids, and when his uncle died?" People knew about that one more than the others. Ned saw how haunted Peter's eyes were. A couple of kids joked about him smoking pot because his eyes were red so often and he kept to himself to aggressively. Michelle knew about Ben's death in general. "He was there- he watched him get shot and then homecoming when he ran out he was...Trying to help someone and he got hurt doing it- way worse than I thought at first and now he's _kidnapped_. And the only thing that's come back around for him is getting into this stupid school, it's not fair!"

He's pretty sure that Michelle isn't a hugger, but his voice broke even in the hush he tries to stay in and the next thing he knows her arms are around his shoulders. "I'm so scared.." He whispers.  
"...Me too."

[...]

"He's a smart kid, May, he's a goddamn genius and right now he doesn't want to be found." He can hear her on the other end of the line choking down the blunt information. They're well past the point of tiptoeing around each other on the issue now. Tony knew perfectly well what it was like to lie to yourself though, and that was what May was doing. She wasn't in denial, she just didn't want what she knew to be true. Tony could say the same but someone had to get her to stop demanding answers no one had. "I'm sorry, I am, but I can't find him, I haven't been able to find him and I can't reassure you- I wish to hell I could do any of those things but I have nothing for you. Peter is avoiding us. All of us."

"...I want to know why. I want to understand.."  
Tony sighs. "Me too."

[...]

It's been ten weeks and three days since anyone last saw Peter Parker, and one week since the reported return of Spider-Man. Standing on the edges of buildings used to rile his nerves. There was a thrill in swinging about. Heights made his stomach do flips but he loved the fall before he shot his web anyway. He doesn't feel anything up there anymore. He looks down at the ground below him and there are no nerves. No anticipation. No thrill. Only an inkling to jump even though he can't catch himself anymore.

He doesn't fight crime like he used to either, and it makes him wonder if Spider-Man was who returned at all. They say it is, despite his change in behavior and appearance, but do they really know any better?

Tony still wasn't getting the hint. Not as far as Peter can tell. He gave it time; after the third attempt at getting Peter's attention he didn't try again until the news report came out. That night he sat outside for hours. Peter threw a pebble at him in a moment of frustration and annoyance. He still wasn't spotted.  
He hasn't come back out all week, but now it's been eight days and Peter sees him on the ground below, looking for a place to sit and wait in the open.

He understands now what the man meant when he said he wanted Peter to be better than him. Despite his high IQ the man was an absolute idiot. As much as it pisses him off though, Peter was making his way down the side of the building while recounting how his view of his idol has changed since being captured. After all, Tony was a multi-billionaire and superhero who couldn't track down one teenager hidden in a basement(if he even tried at all). He says he feels that Peter's safety is in part on him and yet has no idea how to help the boy even before. And now he sits out in the open waiting to be attacked just to get a child's attention- for what? Guilt? Peter can't imagine that it was anything else.

He doesn't start on the sidewalk until he's out of Stark's direct view. From there he makes his way around the block to come up behind the bench Tony waits on. Peter steps around, sits near him but not close and slides his hands into the hoodie's pockets. He doesn't need to look at Tony to know he's surprised when he shifts in his seat and clears his throat.

"Haven't seen you in a while. How've you been? Keeping out of trouble?" He tries to sound casual, but his tone is just mocking enough. He's bitter, it seemed, about Peter's absence.  
"You're going to get shot if you keep sitting out like this." He hasn't spoken a word in so long that Peter himself is surprised by the rasp of his voice. Tony is too, judging by the beat of silence before his reply.  
"And you? Still in danger?"  
"Was I ever not?"


	4. Chapter 4

_The lights go on and off at random intervals. Peter has gotten used to the lack of days and nights and he adjusts to the sudden darkness faster than he used to think was possible. Even compared to his time as Spider-Man in his homemade suit he's improved. Peter is awfully thankful for that. He can smell the warm food placed somewhere nearby but before this he might not have been able to find it without kicking it in the process._

_The plate is the only sign that they were giving him a break. There was no timer, he couldn't count down the minutes before the games began again. It could be one or it could be thirty. That knowledge adds to the desperation to find his prize and eat quickly.  
Peter crawls on the ceiling, so close to it that his chest nearly brushes the surface with every movement(another thing he wouldn't have thought possible before despite his enhanced strength and improved limberness since the bite). His head hangs backwards to see the ground as clear as possible as he inches across the path._

_One hand lifts off the ceiling for a split second when he spots it in the dark, the habit of shooting a web not broken just yet. If he could he would use one to lower himself down without touching the floor, just to be safe, but the option no longer existed and so he plants his hand back on the concrete and swings his body down to land on his feet._

[...]

It took him an entire day to call May about it. If he hadn't known better he would have said that it was just a dream, something his mind invented to comfort him over the loss of the boy. Tony knew the difference between even the realest dreams and reality though. He's had enough scarily close nightmares.  
Even still his thumb hovers over the contact hesitantly.

How does one tell a woman that the child she raised as her own, in hiding surely because of trauma, met with you instead of her? That you met with him and got nothing besides a few raspy lines that did nothing to assure you he was even physically okay? Tony doesn’t know how to do it. If it was anything else in the world he wouldn’t do it at all, but he made a promise to himself to keep the boy safe and he had failed. Himself, Peter, and May alike.

It rings three times before she answers. “Tony?”  
He swallows dryly. “I saw him. I talked to him.”  
There’s silence on the other end. He can practically see her tears eyes as she tries to process the little information she’s received. “What did...? How? When?”  
“Yesterday. I’m sorry, May, I didn’t know what to tell you. It was like a scene in a damn spy movie, spitting on opposite ends of a bench, no looking at each other, hoods up- he barely even said anything before he left.”  
“Yesterday?!” Mild annoyance aside, he doesn’t blame her for focusing on that part. Thankfully though she comes around to something softer quite fast. “What did he say? Is he okay?”

_“Was I ever not?”_  
_Tony wished he could yell. Turn to look at Peter, grab him by the shoulders and demand an explanation but he barely even moves and inch. “You know what I mean.”  
He thinks he hears a scoff. He can picture a tiny smile on Peter’s face, amused st least a little bit. That could be hopeful thinking. “They’re still out there. I won the game though.” It didn’t even come close to making sense. Tony finally gives in and turns his head to look at him but Peter is up in an instant, likely at the first sign of movement._

”He said that he won. I don’t know what that means but I’m guessing there was a deal with whoever took him. He said they’re still out there but he won, and then he left.. he didn’t sound good.”  
More silence. More processing. His hand tightens on the phone. “What do we do now?”  
“I have no idea. Just wanted you to know.”

[...]

It's freezing outside. Tony sits on a bench once again with an extra jacket draped across his lap, waiting for the boy to come out of the shadows. It's his second attempt since their meeting, having no idea where to be and when to guarantee Peter will see him, he tries not to think too much on how the first one failed. Or how he's been sitting around doing nothing for an hour already today as well.

He wonders what May would say to see him doing this again. Everyone else has given up on telling him not to. They tried for some time, but they were more invested in Tony than in Peter and can't entirely see where he was coming from. Pepper watched him go with a sad look in her eyes today, but didn't even open her mouth to protest. May Parker would probably encourage him if she knew he was continuing these weak efforts. They didn't communicate that well was all.  
He wonders if she was doing the same thing. If he would get a call telling him that Peter came to see her this time, or perhaps his friend Ned. Tony was not the only one who wanted to make up to the boy the way he couldn't save him.

In the middle of his dwelling thoughts something hits the side of his neck sharply. One hand instinctively shoots up to cover the spot while he glances between the direction it came from to the ground where apparently the weapon of choice landed- weapon in this case meaning a pebble. Again. He's on his feet quickly, turning in a circle to try and see where Peter was hiding this time only to find him right behind the bench, close and watching. Tony just about jumps out of his skin and curses under his breath.

"Jesus, kid. When did saying hi go out of style?" Peter is shaking. Trembling in place with his hood up and head down. Any other time Tony would deny the small tugging in his chest at the sight, and he couldn't even see the boy's face. "Not gonna say anything this time? Really?" Shaking his head, he adjusts the coat in his hands and goes to drape it over Peter's shoulders. A pair of small, filthy, calloused hands raise to hold either end of the coat's opening and keep it close to his body. Tony sighs, ready to shoo the kid back to whatever hole he's been hiding in when he hears a whisper- not loud enough to make out the words but enough he knows it wasn't just a sigh.

"Come again?" He asks, trying his damnedest not to sound overly concerned and scare him away. There's another pause, and finally Peter speaks.  
"I-I can't r-regulate in the..." He sounds even worse, likely do to a dry, cold throat given what the weather has been like as of late. Tony frowns.  
"Spiders can't regulate their body temperatures.. Which means you can't either." Peter nods. "You don't have to stay out here, Pete."

The kid's head shoots up to look him in the eye so quickly Tony nearly jumps again. Finally though, he can see Peter's face; pale and wide-eyed but not scarred. Dirty, but unharmed. "I wont make you." He adds, hands raised in a surrendering gesture. "Wont make you go to May either, if that's what you're worried about. Stay in the tower, get warmed up. Don't say a word if you don't want just.. Don't let me find you dead out there turned into a popsicle, alright?"

His head goes down again and everything seems to stand still right up until the kid finally shakes his head. Tony doesn’t realize that he was holding his breath until suddenly it was released with a crashing wave of disappointment. Peter holds the jacket a little tighter and starts walking. Clearly he wasn’t accepting Tony’s help but he doesn’t run or tell him not to follow either- and so he does.

He fights the urge to place a hand on Peter's back while they walk, both afraid of scaring him off and of losing him somehow on the way to wherever they were going. The silence, he thinks, is what kills him for the five minute it lasts before Peter tries to speak up again. Tries to sound normal, despite how he was already seeming out of breath and how he shuffles like his feet weighed tonnes.  
"O-only you would walk to s-some ra-andom bench with a gar.... with a gara-ge full of cars."  
Tony can't take his eyes off of him. The skinny fingers holding the jacket around his shoulders begin to tremble noticeably and the man's brow furrows at the sight. "Thought I could use the fresh air."  
"N--" Before the word can begin to form Peter trips on his own feet, barely catching himself on his hands and knees. Tony lands only a split second after him, dropping to the ground and immediately going to remove the hood with one hand and hold his shoulder with the other.

"Hey hey, kid, what's wrong?" The hair he uncovers is greasy, dirty, and matted near the back of his head. At the base of his skull is a thin gap in hair growth that Tony suspects is due to a scar hidden by the rest of the locks but unable to grow it's own anymore. Letting go of the fabric he tries to reach for the panting boy's face, hoping for a look at his eyes when suddenly one of the hands holding him up lifts to try and wave him off.  
"Don't." he snaps, coughing roughly immediately after.

Despite the warning Tony was all done being patient with him. With a simple "Nope." he gets his feet back under him and scoops the younger up in his arms. Peter can't move fast enough to protest.  
"Only you would rather freeze to death than ask for help.."

[...]

_”If you can escape for twenty-four hours, you win. We won’t chase you, won’t spill your name to anyone, won’t touch anyone you know. Every time we catch you though, we can do whatever we want for the next hour, and then you go back in the maze.”_

_How hard can it be, Peter wondered. He was Spider-Man, they were a couple of crazies that knew how put up a few cement walls in a massive basement. It shouldn’t be so difficult._

_It shouldn’t have been, and yet when he sees the light of day again it’s been weeks already. Weeks of starvation, searching frantically for water, food, and any sort of exit in the maze they designed. Weeks of concussions when he struggles upon capture, being chained and beaten, chased around, and toyed with. He was learning to adapt, to stay awake for bizarre amounts of time, to crawl and climb faster than he ever did before. But he wasn’t fast enough. He blames their unfair rules and the lack of food for when he dragged across the ground and back into their collective possession._

[...]

Tony carries him all the way through the building, straight to a bathroom with a fluffy rug he sets him on. He can tell by the pinched expression on Peter’s face that he wanted to gripe about the treatment even if he doesn’t make a sound. Sitting on the edge of the tub himself, he points a finger at the young man and scolds, “don’t do that. I’m running you a bath, you’re going to warm up, wash up, and then take a nap.” His other hand reaches behind him to turn on the water and let it begin to heat.

It’s far warmer inside than it is out. Tony sheds his coat and tosses it out the room. Peter’s hands no longer tremble but he doesn’t shed the extra layer of clothing just yet. Instead he stares at the running water completely motionless. Tony sets both hands on his knees and sighs yet again. “Hey, kid.” He looks exhausted and tiny even compared to his already lithe frame. “Peter. Come on, feel the water. I don’t know how hot to make it.”

It takes a moment, but soon enough the boy was creeping over. At the edge of the bath he rests one arm on it and reaches with the other to test the temperature. At the moment it was only lukewarm, but given how cold Peter’s body was the water would likely seem far hotter until he adjusted. Regardless of however it felt, he lets his hand sit under the stream with no sign of moving again. He still doesn’t seem quite relaxed.

Tony nearly pats his shoulder but hesitates. "Get in when you're ready. I'll set some clothes by the door. Try not to fall asleep until you're dressed and there'll be something to eat after." He doesn't want to leave the room. He doesn't want to let Peter out of his sight for a second, but he was getting no where by hovering so far. Peter was sick and tired. He needed rest, perhaps time to process what was happening now. Tony gives him what he can, and when he returns with bottled water and a sandwich he finds the clothes still sitting outside of the door. He gives it another ten minutes before knocking. Another one before he walks into the bathroom, only to find Peter gone once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the continued support here. We'll get some actual time dedicated to Tony and his thoughts and feelings about this chapter's ending in the next one.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so excited about this one, I'm not gonna lie. But that also makes me more nervous about it lmaooo

His stomach was twisting in his gut, tying itself into a knot at the sight of an empty bathroom. When he'd picked Peter up he could hear his own pulse throbbing in his ears. Tony wasn't one to wait around for others, never mind stand and gawk at something that didn't entirely surprise him. He'd waited long enough for answers. For the boy to realize what he was doing to those around him and man up. Talk to someone. Even with numerous scenarios running through his mind of the trauma he must have gone through over those two months, Tony was out of patience.

Peter was light in his arms. Shaking and squirming but not daring to say no, possibly due to the look on the man's face as he trudged them back to his home. Maybe he didn't really want to refuse the help. Or at least, that was what Tony had thought before Peter disappeared on him once again.

The knot, in his defense, had already been building before he got back to the room. As soon as he left Peter in the bathroom alone it began; this uneasy feeling and gnawing guilt. It might not be fair. He wasn't Peter's guardian, he wasn't a role model. The promise he made was done only to himself, only because he saw enough of himself in the boy searching for meaning in his young life. He was trying to be a better man. To make life easier on the younger. Peter didn't ask him for help before, and he didn't now.

Perhaps it was selfish of him all along to put this weight on his own shoulders. But none of that makes the feeling go away.

When he returned and sat outside the door he considered going in without knocking, worried Peter was sleeping in the tub or perhaps already passed out and dying on the floor. He told himself he was being ridiculous. The empty bathroom told him that he would soon be hearing about _missing boy Peter Parker found dead_ on the news.

Heart beating faster and faster in his chest, Tony gives up on the playing things patiently.

[...]

His body feels weak. His joints are stiff, his eyes keep drying out in the cold air making his vision blurry, and his fingers felt numb. His chest screams at him with every ragged breath like he was inhaling ice itself- but he keeps going. Keeps moving. He jumps from one building to the next, from roofs to bricks. The tread on his stolen sneakers was being worn down and his hands were rough from each landing scraping up the callouses that developed from similar bare-handed climbing up until this point. He goes until he hears a shout stopping him dead in his tracks.

A large man stands bundled up by a hot dog stand Peter used to pass by almost every day on his after-school patrols and calls out to him, "Hey, Spider-Man!"  
Peter doesn't move. For a long minute he's frozen, attached to the wall of a random building across the street from the stand. He doesn't think most people would have spotted him, but perhaps this one was keeping an eye out. He'd been nice whenever Peter passed by before.

There's silence as Peter shifts, turning his body to let the man know he's heard him without letting his face be seen. With a careful glance he sees a hot dog held in the air in offering. With a twist in his stomach, he begins to climb down to the pavement below.

Across the street he hesitates again for only a moment before opening his mouth. "I don't..."  
"Don't worry about it." He can't see the man's face, not if he wants to keep his own hidden, but he can hear the smile in his voice. Peter takes the offered food and immediately bites into it. His fingers sting, rubbed raw just like he suspected they would be. "Lookin' a little different since last time. Even superheroes get it rough, huh?"  
Peter doesn't entirely know how to reply. He settles for a nod. He doesn't feel much like a hero.  
"Hope you gave the guys who did this to ya a good beatin'." He didn't. The man sounds genuine, but he ran, and he was still running even when his senses told him that there was no reason to. How pathetic. He swallows dryly. In response to his silence, the stranger continues. "What happened to your suit?"  
"Got too r-ripped up." Another large bite of his hot dog.

"Damn. Well hey, I can't hand out too much but come back tomorrow, yeah?" It feels like a trick; someone offering a kindness to him knowing he can't give anything in return. What was the point then? To watch a worn down vigilante wander blindly through the city until he can do something useful for more strangers? Spoil a crime, get another arrested, send someone else running with bruises to teach them lessons they'd never learn?

"Thanks."

[...]

It should be easy. By the time Tony finds Peter he's worked himself up even more, flying around the skies of New York trying to catch a glimpse of a lost boy most likely on a roof if not already in whatever hole he hauls up in these days. When he turns out to be right and he sees the hooded figure sitting around on some random building, he's done.

What he doesn't quite expect is Peter to see him coming so easily. As Tony swoops down to scoop the boy up, Peter turns around leaps into the air, assumably to dodge him. Seconds later he realizes a shift in weight- Peter was on his back.

He spins around as they go, reaches back to try and get a hold of him. Every time he touches him Peter moves, crawling around his body like-- well, like a spider. The struggle has Tony's flying off. They spin and wobble and swerve for at least two minutes before Tony tries to change tactics.  
"Hey, kid! Kid it's me!" He shouts, holding both hands at his sides to regain balance, assuming that the struggle wasn't going to work at the rate they were going. Peter's arm wraps around his throat and legs hook around his torso as much as possible. " _Peter_."

The arm around him tugs upwards, forcing his head back. "What do you want?" A voice growls in his ear, much too venomous for the young boy it belonged to.  
"Peter, it's me!" A dozen more questions have risen, but before any of them can be answered he needs Peter to calm down.  
"What do you want from me?!"  
As soon as he starts towards rooftop to land on, the faceplate of his suit retracts. "It's me! It's Tony! It's just Tony!"

It's difficult to land. Between how his head is still held back and how the wind on his face makes it impossible to keep his eyes open. He makes it only with a tumble, skidding on his knees before toppling forward and rolling onto his back- onto Peter on his back. The young hero holds his own, tensing instead of letting go. They stop finally but Tony turns them over on his own, only somewhat surprised when Peter leaps off of him and takes a fighting stance.

Tony's skull pounds, the armor around his head having barely kept his face from directly smashing into the concrete. He blinks rapidly, searching for Peter and raising his hands in preparation for another attack when he finally registers the stillness. Peter was there still, frozen in position with a ripped up jacket hanging off his body from the landing, and his eyes locked onto Tony's face. At last he seemed to be coming back to himself.

"And you with me?" Tony pants out, waiting for the slight nod before letting himself drop onto his ass. "Shit, kid...What the hell was that?" He knows that he shouldn't ask. As soon as the words are leaving his mouth he knows he should have stopped them, but then it was too late.  
Peter gulps and slowly shifts to sit on his knees. "I...I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...Oh god, I'm sorry--" He was looking at the gravel now, eyes unblinking as a dread settles obviously over his shoulders.  
"Hey hey hey- don't do that. Come on kid, eyes on me." It's a miracle that he listens, but the expression doesn't change. Tony begins shifting towards him. "I'm okay, you're okay. No harm done. Just take a breath, alright?"

Again, he does. It shakes and has him coughing a few times once again, face twisting up in a wince. Tony thinks his own heart might be aching through all of this. "Take another breath. You gonna run away again if I take you back to the tower?"  
Peter shakes his head and for a moment he feels a vague sense of relief, only for that moment before the young man opens up his mouth. "I ca-an't..."  
"No one is coming for you. You won, right? So they let you go? They've kept their word this long, why break it now?" No response. "Even if they do, where's safer than with me? With my security?"

Peter keeps on breathing. His chest heaves, his brow remains furrowed, and then finally he nods.

[...]

The sliding on the rooftop did more damage than he expected. Tony spends the first five minutes with Peter in the bathroom again just trying to get him to take his shirt off. The next are spent picking little bits of gravel out of his skin.

"Do you not even feel pain anymore or what? Kinda putting me to shame here if you don't flinch soon." Tony says casually. Playfully, even, searching for a regular tone to make everything feel less tense and heavy.  
"I'm used to it." Peter takes a sip of his water. "You can take a closer look.”

For a moment Tony’s brow furrows again as he processes, but quickly realizes that he was supposed to see something else on Peter’s back. “You’re covered in dirt, dried sweat, and blood. I can’t see a lot else right now.” They really did need to get him to actually sit in the tub instead of only soaking his feet in it. Now that it was mentioned though the man leans back somewhat to try and get a fuller, less focused look at the younger’s form. There were a few lines that stood up against the rest of his pale skin, but the grime and the lack of meat on his bones truly did make it difficult to see the extent of the damage. All the same his blood was already boiling below the surface; Peter was a small but toned and athletic figure, quite muscular for his age even if that didn’t come until after the spider bite. Now the muscle was there but smaller, and his body fat was all but completely gone, leaving him an appearance mostly consisting of harsh lines and narrow shapes.

The obvious starvation was reason enough to want the people who did this to pay for it, never mind the episode of confusion earlier. Between the instinct to fight instead of merely dodge and assess, the way he moves so differently than before, and the state his body was in Tony was staring at a puzzle in his mind that he wanted nothing more than to solve. Unfortunately for him though he didn’t have all of the pieces to finish the picture- hardly any at all.

Peter leans forward to pull the plug on the bath so that it could drain and be refilled, assumably so that he could properly wash up now that Tony has mentioned it. “You gonna tell me what they did to make this so easy?” He doesn’t honestly expect him to talk about it. It took months for Tony to speak of his own worst moments - his traumas, if one wanted to call them that - every single time. Reasonably, he assumes Peter’s shrug will be the end of it, and for the time being he won’t press that part of the issue.

”I’m guessing your healing factor is pretty slow right now, so we’ll have to disinfect all of this when you’re all cleaned up. I’ll stay outside the door this time, so if you need anything...” Peter’s arms were hugging his own middle, still sore and red fingers digging into his sides. “Hey, what’s wrong?” Peter shakes his head. Tony sets his hand on his shoulder. When all he gets in response is a whine, he gives a gentle and hopefully reassuring squeeze.

"...want to sleep.” He mumbles, he grip on his sides slowly softening.  
Tony’s hand slides to his back. “Not yet. Soon, okay?” Peter shakes his head again, his breath beginning to quicken. It wasn’t good. He can see him beginning to shake slightly. Tony only lets his hand fall away to plug the bath back up and make the water a bit warmer. “Come on, the water will help. Just ten minutes.” It doesn’t feel like he’s doing the right thing. If he had already called May she could be doing this, probably getting through to Peter much better than Tony is or even could. He wasn’t good at this. He does what he can to protect those around him but he doesn’t take care of people. He doesn’t even know how and now he had a mutant teenager sitting on the edge of his bathtub staring at it like he didn’t even remember what that was. ”...Do you want May here?”

Just like before Peter’s movement was so sudden Tony nearly jumps when he looks at him. “Okay, okay take it easy. No May yet. But you gotta help me out here, Pete. I’m not gonna give you a sponge bath, I’ll leave the room and everything but you need to clean yourself off. And use soap, please.” He was still trying to sound casual, but wether Peter hears it or not Tony doesn’t think he was doing so well anymore. He was confused, concerned. If he wasn’t so good at lying anyway he’d be impressed with himself for coming off as stable as he was.

He wrings his hands and looks back down at the rising water.

In the end Tony gets his wish. Peter is losing the last of his clothing while he door shuts behind him, and while hovering he can listen to the sound of water splashing lightly as it makes room for a body. Satisfied with the progress, his mind begins to travel to the next matter of business; May Parker. He can’t in good conscience hide Peter from his aunt, not after what they’ve been through, not with how useless he feels in this situation but then Peter was adamant that he didn’t want to see her yet. Tony opts to step out of the room and pulls out his cellphone. Hopefully she would hear him out before storming over.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The comments I'm getting here are the best, thank y'all. I hope you enjoy this sad filth, I would have had it done much sooner if not for bouts of exhaustion because I haven't been meeting my diet requirements quite right and I'm gonna be honest, a couple of these scenes are a blur in my memory.

Peter opens the door when he's done, still shirtless and damp with dripping hair, dressed in the sweatpants Tony pulled out for him with the drawstring pulled tight. Tony is off of the phone by then, waiting where he said he would be with a fresh bottle of water for him. "Ready to get disinfected?" He asks as he stands, hardly any more prepared for the look of the boy's back now than he was earlier.

His front is already something to behold. Ribs and tight muscle on full display, a large scar across his stomach and another on his inner arm from pit to elbow. The dirt and old blood gone, he was pale, rigid, and bruised. Splotches of purple and brown stood out heavily in contrast even if they're healing well. On his chest were scars that Tony has trouble placing for a moment before recognizing a pattern and remembering the last real villain Peter faced; the vulture's suit had claws designed fittingly like a birds and on Peter's body he could make out the shape of where he had apparently been grabbed with them. Peter had never mentioned that.  
A smooth and perfectly straight line of a scar sits across him just under his pecs. It was as unsettling as it was confusing, and no more clear when Peter sits back down and shows him the rest.

Some scars bulge, others are simply tightened lines of skin, likely based on how recent they are or how deep they were originally. Most of them are white or pink lines of varying textures on his skin, ranging from thick lines to what looks like use to be holes or gashes. The knot in Tony's stomach returns in full. Peter doesn't look at him. He reaches for the hydrogen peroxide and a hand towel, wetting the latter and crouching down to begin dabbing it on Peter's back where the skin was still pink from the gravel.

”Ready to eat after this or take a nap?”  
“Nap.”  
“Okay.. you know you're going to have to eat after that, right?”  
Something changes then. Peter's shoulders lower slightly but his hands tense at his sides. "I don't need it."  
Tony blinks, hesitating just a moment before continuing on with a sigh. "I'm making you something while you sleep." Wether or not he ate it was another bridge they would have to cross when they get there.

[...]

Peter tucks into bed easily. Tony never imagined that the next time he'd have a guest in his room would be because a young hero was too traumatized to go home and the guest room baths had different knobs that he didn't feel like relearning how to use while dealing with him.

Pepper is waiting in the kitchen by the time Tony gets there, a small variety of simple to digest foods already sitting on the counter. The sight alone relieves some of the tension in his shoulders. "How'd you know?"  
"Almost went up, F.R.I.D.A.Y said you had a guest, I asked who it was." She offers a small shrug, tone as gentle as her hands coming to cradle Tony's face. "Are you okay?"  
He resists the urge to brush past, dismiss the concern like the water she's been leaving out for him even more than usual, knowing how he was when he was so distracted. The fact that she cared enough to do so along with a semi-recent agreement of theirs however keeps his feet planted on the ground where they were. "I'm fine."  
"You're guilty, and you shouldn't be."  
"Of course I am, Pepper. You didn't see...He's covered in scars. Covered in them. He's nearly all skin and bones but he doesn't want to eat- didn't even want to bathe. Kid's so exhausted I feel like he might not ever wake up, his aunt is coming for him tomorrow morning but just mentioning her scares him half to death, he's-- god he's so fucked up.. So different."

Pepper's brow furrows, her eyes searching his while she processes what she's just been told the way she always does; calm, stable, and held together as if anything was actually okay. Tony walks around the counter to the barstools, elbows resting on the surface in front of him and head held in his hands.  
"Let's just take this slow.." She starts, coming around to sit beside him and rub his back. "Why's May coming tomorrow instead of today?"  
With a heavy sigh, Tony lifts his head to set his chin in one palm. "I told her I found something. Didn't say it was him or else she probably wouldn't wait and he might go jumping out the window. Just said it was important but I needed some more time to get more answers- which I doubt I'll actually get. Just needed to stall..But I can't hide him from her. Can't take care of him, that's for sure."

He can see where she's going before a sound passes her lips. "You know me, Pep, come on. I can't help a traumatized kid. I'm not good with emotions. I'm not even good with kids. My attempts to keep him safe only got him nearly killed- twice! Yeah, it turns out he didn't just crash a plane when I took the suit away, he's got scars on his chest from Toomes's costume. God knows what the bastard did to him and he just smiled like everything was fine later.."  
"...Sounds like someone else I know."  
He winces. "Don't."

”It’s not your fault, Tony. Peter made choices with Toomes that he would have made anyway. The suit helps I’m sure but it doesn’t make him invincible, and you said it yourself that it was a lesson he needed.”  
“That was bef—“  
“And this now? This isn’t anyone’s fault. If you could have saved him, you would have. And you’re right, he does need his aunt most right now. He isn't your responsibility, Tony.. But if you want to be there, you have to commit to it. If he’s as bad as he sounds then you cannot step in and then just leave. I’ll be here to help either way.” 

[...]

When Peter woke he was confused for all of three seconds before reality came crashing back down, releasing a long sigh from his chest. Tony Stark’s bedroom wasn’t something he ever wondered much about before, only wether or not he ever covered the walls in posters like Peter did. Now he was in the man’s bed, wearing his clothes, because he couldn’t handle the cold any longer. He can anticipate May bursting in at any moment if she wasn’t already there and waiting in another room and the thought isn’t half as amusing as it used to be. Once upon a time Ned would have laughed about it and Peter would feel a little lighter, having an excuse to tell himself not to worry. Now the thought makes his chest feel heavy and tight.

Rubbing his face with both hands, Peter sits up. As he takes another look around the place he catches sight of the nightstand and more importantly what was on it; a sandwich on a plate, the bottle of water he'd yet to finish earlier, and a package of crackers. Despite what he'd said earlier, Peter doesn't hesitate to dive into the sandwich after he takes a short moment to inspect it.

He's easily gobbled down what was left for him by the time the door opens, a tired looking Tony stepping in surely to check on the boy he's burdened himself with. He seems surprised by the sight; Peter sat on the edge of the bed finishing off his crackers. "Feeling alright?"  
"...I guess."  
"You ate. Thought you didn't want to."  
Peter looks away. "Said I didn't need it.. I'm sorry I just...Got defensive." He knows that it sounds strange after he says it, but Tony doesn't push- not the way he expected anyway.

The man sits beside him, close but not too close and asks simply, “Want to tell me why?” He didn’t, but the longer silence stretches on the more he can feel Tony’s eyes bearing into him. He owed answers. He didn’t want to relive it- but then, wasn’t he already?  
“In the beginning they tried to force me to... It was eat when they said or not at all. I chose not at all for a while.”  
“...So you just don’t want to be told when to eat?” he shrugs, and Tony sighs. “Your aunt’s gonna be here tomorrow morning. We need to know what happened to you. She does at least so if you don’t want to tell her you need to tell me. We’re not playing games here, Peter.”

He knows what he looks like, tensing up the way he does and clenching his jaw. He isn’t proud of himself. “Maybe I’m not ready for that.”  
“Excuse me, you’ve had how long to sort yourself out? And you came here willing, kid.”  
“So there’s conditions for using your bath?” He scoffs, shaking his head at nothing in particular. Peter walks in circles in his head, regret building quickly for thinking he could do this. Thinking that he could come back and get help.  
“That’s not what I said.” Tony points out but it doesn’t matter. The message has been received. Peter pulls his legs up onto the bed, sitting on his knees as he moves smoothly to he wall and plants his hands on the surface. He moves quickly like this, but Tony is fast as well and grabs his ankle before he can reach the ceiling.

“Dammit! Come on!” Tony grunts as Peter begins to kick and shake his leg wildly.  
“Get off!” His knee bangs against the wall when Tony loses one hand. Peter tries to continue on with only three limbs, but finds it just about impossible not because of Tony’s weight but because of the angle his leg would be dangling if he made it upside down. The solution is to jerk it forward until his toes can stick to the surface again regardless of the grown man still holding on - with both hands again, unfortunately - and his weakened state.  
“Peter—“ he doesn’t look down to see what Tony was doing, but he can hear the thuds against the wall as he’s dragged up. The grip on his ankle twists, the weight tugging in different directions as Peter gets to the top of the room at last and Tony swings back and forth from a slowly slipping hold. “Peter!”

Peter's heart beats faster and faster in his chest, slowing his crawl to the window slightly. Tony swings his feet up, the momentum rocking them both slightly and with his feet planted on the ceiling he almost wins. Peter hesitates, surprised by the sudden resistance. Tony was trying to get through to him, to catch his attention. Peter’s vaguely tingling spider sense suddenly spikes and he prepares for another fight.

He drops from the ceiling, landing haphazardly on top of Tony. He hears the older groaning through gritted teeth while he scrambles away on all fours, limber and quick despite his lungs struggling to keep up with the sudden activity. His elbows and palms sting slightly from the fall, his stomach was beginning to twist again but it wasn't half as debilitating as it would be in the cold.  
"You want to go? Go then!" Tony shouts, sitting up with one hand on the floor to prop himself up and the other held out in surrender. "Fuck! Forget me, forget May, let her wonder what happened forever. It's not like she's been just about killing herself over it." Peter freezes, eyes wide and brow still furrowed with frustration. "Not like she raised you, might think she failed you and your parents. Nah, forget all of that and just run out the window. Again.”

“That’s not fair.” He bites out, insides suddenly feeling so much worse and his throat beginning to hurt when he thinks of her. “That’s not fucking fair, Tony.”  
“Doesn’t have to be. None of this is fair, kid. Almost nothing is ever going to be, but especially not shit like this. Something bad happened to you, I get that, but now it’s over and you have to realize that.”  
His knees tap the floor as the aggression momentarily leaves his body. “You don’t know anything about it.”  
“I don’t? Do you remember how I became Iron Man? Surely you heard about it.”  
“It’s different.”  
“How? Tell me how. What happened, and we can work on it together.”

”No.” Peter shakes his head. “No you don’t get to do that- you can’t just manipulate me like that! You weren’t there, Tony!” One fist slams on the floor, giving Peter a beat of silence to sit up on his heels in. “God- do you remember after the fairy got torn apart? And you said that if I died it was on you? Like-like I was your responsibility because I’m some dumb kid who can’t take care of himself but where were you when it mattered, huh? You weren’t there! I was alone with them for-for two months!”

His gaze moves wildly, bouncing off the floor to one wall to Tony and then to another. In his quick glances he can see the man’s expression shifting, something changing but he knew how to mask himself well. “I didn’t even know how long it was until I got out and you know why? You want to know why I fight different now? Because they kept me in a maze underground, hunting me constantly and every time they caught me they got to do whatever the fuck they wanted. Over and over and over and I adapted, I hid and ran and fought back and I won I— they poured bleach down my throat once. How’s that for a game?!”

Tony shifts closer. Slowly sliding himself across the floor to not startle or anger the boy further no doubt. Peter wants to yell at him for that to. He doesn’t even know why. His mouth hangs open, body tense all over. Not a sound makes it out again, and then Tony was pulling him into a hug.

This time it was Peter who didn’t know what to do with himself. His arms dangle stiff at his sides, his expression softening into blank confusion.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excuse the delay, I literally just didn’t plan this far ahead. Also I had plans for something a little farther in the story than this but I may have kind of forgotten so bare with me while I figure out what I’m doing from here on. Idk what it is about this story but I’ve been writing for years(personal works and fanfics) and nothing has ever been this easy/natural for me and I really don’t want to lose that.

Peter is more hesitant than either of them would have thought he’d be to return a hug from Tony. He’d been so nervous and eager around the man in the past that he should have reveled in the feeling and yet all he felt was bitterness draping overtop of his relief. A nagging in the back of his head tells him that the peace won’t last. That he was only getting it out of pity in the first place. Still the gesture alone as well as the feeling of a warm, strong body around his own made him feel safe.

It either lasts for a mere moment or several minutes. Peter can’t really tell. Eventually though he holds on a little tighter and then starts to let go. “My stomach hurts.”  
“Hurts how?” Tony pulls away, moving his hands to Peter’s shoulders.  
“I don’t know..? It just.. it keeps doing it.”  
“Since when? When did it start?”  
Another shrug. Even if he could keep track, the most Peter has said since his escape was the shouting moments ago. All at once he was realizing just how foreign conversation felt. For the longest time he didn’t even reply when spoken to by his captors. He didn’t need to help them, they would do what they wanted wether he replied to taunts or not and so Peter very quickly got used to being silent when his usual chatter only made things worse.

Tony doesn’t know a lot about things like that when it doesn’t have to do with alcohol, as it turns out. Peter isn’t surprised. He isn’t entirely sure that he believes him but if it were true it wouldn’t be a shock. Tony suggests they talk to Pepper and somehow he is surprised by that; her presence hadn’t occurred to him given what all was going on. The fact that she knows he was here doesn’t sit right in his gut either. The two adults had to have been talking about him while he was asleep, and the thought makes him bitter- as if he weren’t already.

They only go downstairs when Tony promises more food. He doesn’t like responding to bribes any more than threats but his head was comparatively clearer now than it was earlier, and logic says that Tony wasn’t going to withhold it if he didn’t follow, it was just easier for him to come down to the kitchen as well. As they go however he feels the need to remind Tony that he didn’t want to talk to Pepper. He looks both confused and disappointed. Peter isn’t sure what about. Maybe he'd been wanting to pawn Peter off on someone else for a little while, let Pepper take care of the broken boy so he can take a break.

Peter doesn’t sit still very easily. In the kitchen he sits at the breakfast bar and lets the man rifle through his fridge but his legs bounce restlessly. He's gotten considerably better since his escape but it was still something that came and went at the least. His eyes drift around the room, taking in the sight of Tony Stark's home. Noting escape routes, things he could throw in self defense. A minute passes and he scolds himself inwardly, shaking his head.

”What’s wrong?”  
Peter neither looks at him nor avoids him. “Nothing.” Tony drops it.  
“Sure you want to eat if your stomach isn’t right?”  
“Could feel bad because I haven’t been eating enough.” He mutters. “I mean look at me.”  
“Fair point.” Tony conceded and slides a bowl of cereal towards him. Finally Peter looks back at the kitchen in front of him and see eggs on the stove as well. “Glad you’re not actually delusional by the way.” Peter only nods and Tony lets that go too, reminding him to eat slow.

By the time he finishes round two of food, his stomach has stopped hurting but wether that was because of the food or his nerves calming was anyone’s guess. He thinks he was about to find out when the sound of heels on hard floor starts down the hall and comes closer. He stills when he hears it and Tony pauses with his eyes on Peter. He didn’t hear it yet despite how it echoes, but that only goes to show how his hearing was different. Peter relied heavily on his advanced senses and yet manages to feel like he hates them ever since his escape. Maybe even before that if he were honest.

Pepper pauses when she spots Peter, before she's even entered the room. Tony has caught on by then and Peter quickly catches a similarity between the two; Despite their smooth exteriors they were both equally uncertain of how to proceed being all in the same room. It seems Tony wasn’t the only one around here who knew how to put on a good show, but really what did Peter expect of her?

”Hi, Peter..” he only glances up at her. “It’s nice to officially meet you. I hope you’re feeling better.” She doesn’t even try to shake his hand, to enter his space at all and instead stands on the other side of the bar. Peter appreciates it.  
“Hi.”  
She’s better at faking a smile than Tony has been so far. Maybe that was just because while he didn’t know the man personally well, he knew him better than he knew Pepper and could be fooled by a stranger whose tells he hasn’t begun to pick up on yet. Or maybe he just assumed the worst of the engineer.

Clearing her throat, she turns then to Tony, filling him in on him now rearranged schedule so that he can stay with Peter while he’s there- not in those specific words of course. Pepper was too polite to risk making Peter feel bad, he assumes, but why else would the man’s schedule suddenly be shifting to leave the rest of this day clear until the next afternoon, likely after his aunt came for him. It was all well and good that they were trying to help, to be supportive of whatever the hell was going on. Peter is still ready to snap for the treatment.

[...]

She doesn’t know how she’s supposed to make it through the rest of the work day now. Tony’s number wasn’t one she saw often, but since her nephew’s disappearance it was comparatively more common. At this point he had more leads than the police did- though to be fair he was contacted first. She’s almost positive that her hesitance was getting more eyes on her than out for Peter.

She doesn’t entirely blame them, she knows how it might look, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to throw anything in reach across the room in frustration.

May never wanted kids of her own. She and Ben agreed not to have any, and they’d never doubted that descision for long. They watched over Peter while his parents went on their business trips, they watched him grow, and eventually they gave him back. It was nice, being so involved in his young life without being entirely responsible for him. Without having to worry about parenting choices because they were not his parents and they trusted the ones he had. And then the place crashed one day, and suddenly they had a child of their own.

It was stressful to say the least. Peter was so young when it happened May doesn’t think he remembers his parents, at least not much. They didn’t talk about it anymore. At some point between their death and age eight he stopped asking about them. Back then he remembered some, but not a lot and after seeing a movie with a happy family or a classmate with their parents out and about he’d ask for more information. Longing for something he doesn’t remember having with the people he was supposed to have it with.

They did what they could to fill in. She doesn’t regret that either, and neither did her husband. As stressed as they could be between both working and trying to raise a child they hadn’t planned on, Peter was easy enough. He already had the building blocks for a solid person; he was polite and kind even at a young age. He listened to what he was told most of the time, didn’t fight or hurt anyone even by accident. He was energetic, certainly, but with the right material in front of him he could occupy himself for hours on end. Peter had always been a good child.

May still remembers the day she knew she was a goner, pinning a report card to the fridge covered all in As except for one class. By then it had already been a few years, truth he told. The time had flown by, she felt like. Everything kept on moving and it did so so quickly that for as much as she might have been thinking about the entirety of their situation from things big to small, it somehow hadn’t fully set in that she was essentially the boy’s mother now. Until she pinned those grades, smiling proudly because she knew she had a little genius on her hands.

She and Ben both knew always that Peter would do great things, she just never imagined that meant becoming a neighborhood superhero like he’d always dreamed of as a kid. He also dreamed of _being_ a robot but that hadn’t happened either. Kids had interesting, unrealistic minds, and yet here they were.

The small reassurance she had after discovering what Peter had really been up to though was that he was mutated- which, on paper sounded like an odd statement but truly it was beneficial. Iron Man may be a genius but without his suit he was just a man. He was human, he was breakable at least physically. Peter might not even know all of his abilities and what he had kept him even safer than the suit did. May was relying on that, but then he was taken.

Lately she’s been feeling awfully naive, listening to a fifteen year old about his safety. She wasn’t exactly easy to convince but should she have been tougher? Should she not have caved at all? It would it not have mattered? Peter could be, after all, as stubborn as he was smart. A determined, intelligent person was more dangerous than people often realized. They knew how to get what they wanted and if not immediately then they would figure it out, and she doesn’t doubt that Peter would have continued without her blessing. That didn’t really help the guilt though.

[...]

Michelle was confusing. She always had been to Ned. Always lurking, speaking dryly so that no one knew when she was joking and when she was serious, nose always in a book and yet nothing escaping her ears. Still, he didn’t think much on it. That was how she was and Ned was awfully good at shrugging things off that weren’t his business.

Now though, he’s been thinking about her more. Ever since Peter disappeared he thinks something was different - besides the lack of his best friend’s fun attitude and the addition of his own worries - but he couldn’t quite place what it was. Some days it felt like Michelle was always there, like maybe she was trying to be reassuring by keeping him company. Others he barely noticed her at all, like she was avoiding human contact even more than usual. Michelle had always been confusing, but now even more so and Ned can’t even tell if he should be worried or not.

In his attempt to find a solution of some kind, he invites her to study. This far they’ve only hung out outside of school on field trips and the like. Always still school related, because what else would they do together? Hence the studying, he supposed.  
Now if only he could focus on the work.

”Earth to Leeds.”  
He blinks. “Huh?”  
“Why are we here?” She’s looking at him plainly, expression bored and eyes ever-knowing. Pretty much the same as most days but her tone implied mild irritation.  
“To study..?”  
“Really? Because you clearly stopped paying attention.”  
She was right, but she didn’t have to know that. “I’m totally paying attention.”

Michelle’s pencil is wobbled back and forth between her thumb and middle finger, gaze unwavering. She knew that she was right, but she actually looked bored with this fact. “What’s did I say two minutes ago?”  
“...I have no idea.” Ned sighs.

Sitting back, she nods to herself and lets the pencil go in favor of folding her arms. “Okay. What’s going on?”  
Ned looks away from her eyes then, fiddling with his own pencil. “What do you think?”

”He’ll turn up.”  
“He already did.” It causes a more substantial pause than his initial answer did. Suddenly he realized that he couldn’t quite explain what he saw to her, and that was why he hadn’t before. Maybe Peter was right about how bad he was at keeping secrets. “Not like... he isn’t home, but.. I saw him.  
“Ned...”  
“May did too. And Tony Stark. I know it sounds weird but our eyes can’t be fooling all of us the exact same way- and Mr. Stark isn’t like... close to Peter so why would he get some weird coping mechanism?” That seemed to get the point across. In a glance back up at Michelle’s face he can actually see it all sinking in. “He’s been like.. hiding out somewhere and I think he’s trying to make sure we’re okay? It was only once each I think but he showed up for just a second and then ran off. Either he wanted us to see him or he just got caught checking in or-or both I guess and I don’t get it.”

[...]

Since being moved to the living room Peter hasn’t left. Tony suspects the chance that he would be lost in the tower might bring on too many bad feelings after what he’s been through to risk it. As if to prove his point Peter crawled around the room, perfectly capable of walking but using the ceiling to get to the kitchen for more snacks or water. His body was running so far on empty that once he had more than whatever he’d managed to get a hold of since his escape, it opened up like a black hole, trying to make up for lost time and put him back in shape. Even if Tony kept feeding him like this it would take at least the week for his body to adjust back to its normal standards. Seeing him wolf food down now though he wonders if Peter was ever as healthy as he should be. It wasn’t likely that May could afford all the kid needed, after all. Especially if for the majority of time he’s had his powers so far she didn’t even know about it.

Now he was sick, underweight, the effort to physically fix himself was burning even more energy and on top of that he was too weary to sleep easily anywhere. The kid wouldn’t be in good shape. He wonders if May would accept a grocery allowance to help out.

He wouldn’t have to wonder for too long. It was already the next day. Three am to be exact, but that early hour didn’t stop both Tony and Peter from being awake. Tony couldn’t sleep at all, watching at a distance most of the previous day. The only thing that changed was the amount of mental notes he had(slightly) and that he stopped trying to converse with the boy after a certain hour had passed. Peter slept at two hour intervals. He’d be back out soon and the next time he woke up there would be more breakfast to eat and ideally another two hours of sleep before May arrived.

He wants to keep talking. Keep asking more about what happened and what was wrong. Peter didn’t answer his questions though. He doesn’t say much at all, in fact, and what he does say is in a low murmur despite his voice having warmed back up to working already. It was different. Unsettling, even, and that was coming from a person who didn’t know Peter well to begin with.

The last time he saw the young hero before all of this, he was full of life. Even as he turned down a spot on the Avengers Peter had a small smile on his face, making an incredibly mature descision for himself but thrilled all the same. Before that he was practically bouncing off the walls he was so full of energy, eyes just about _sparkling_. Now he sits there staring out massive windows. Gears were still turning in his head, Tony knows what that looks like, but there was no energy. No happiness. Almost no life.


	8. Chapter 8

Tony greets her by the elevator. He has the same charming smile he always pulls when out in public but there's a furrow in his brow that acts as a crack in his facade. In a way, May is touched by the concern Tony Stark has been expressing for her nephew, just as much as she was mad that he was no more useful than she herself was in this situation. She doesn't entirely understand it but at least she wasn't the only one trying to look out for him when it came down to it.

The awkward pleasantries in the elevator and the slightly off expression make sense when they get to the right floor. In the middle of the room, in a large space between the breakfast bar and the sofa, sat Peter Parker. All at once she forgets how to breathe as simultaneously her heart seems to stop beating. Terror and relief mingle throughout her mind and body alike while she struggles to process what was happening-  
Peter was here. Alive. Safe. But for how long? What did it take for him to be brought here? Did he even agree at all or was he sick? Was he hurt underneath the large T-shirt he wore? And every other question she’s asked up until this point all flew around her mind until he looked up at her. Those big brown eyes that she wiped tears from when he was a scared little boy that couldn’t sleep met hers and a sob forced itself past her lips. A hand clamps over her mouth but she begins to breath again.

Peter doesn’t seem to know what to do with her. He sits there still, watching with minimal expression while his aunt devolves into tears. He responds when she just about collapses onto him though; dropping to her knees to be at his level and immediately wrapping him in a hug. Peter returns the gesture, if a bit hesitantly. And if his arms shake when he lifted them to do so, no one was going to address it.

"I missed you so much... Are you okay? Are you hurt? _God_ of course you were hurt but-- are you still?" She pauses, trying to lean back to look at his face but stuck in his unrelenting embrace.  
"I'm fine."  
"Peter..." She knows what he was doing. He's done it so many times, even before Ben died but even more since then. Peter was always hiding things, not because he was a liar or doing anything wrong but because he didn't want to be a problem. He didn't want her to worry. He didn't want to talk about what was going on. Whichever it is right now she doesn't know, maybe both. It doesn't really matter. She wishes desperately that he stop, just this once and let her in so she can help.

"I heal fast." Physically, of course he did. He was a mutant. A science experiment gone wrong. And that was why he was taken, too. He was captured in the Spider-Man suit, after all. They had wanted the young hero, they didn't care about just how young he was. If he had a family, how terrified they would be. How much she has been hurting, bouncing back and forth between sorrow and fear and rage at the entire situation. At how she couldn't do a thing. How no one could.

"How long, Tony? How long did it take for you to call me?" The waver in her voice surprises no one, but the tone is enough to get Peter to pull away. He doesn't back up much, only loosens his hold enough for her to twist and glare up at the engineer, hands lingering on her forearms. "And why the hell didn't you tell me he was here- you said you had news, you didn't say a word about him being _here_!"

Tony, to his credit, has the decency to look guilty for that. Shoulders still squared and head still high but his expression was troubled. "He wasn't in good shape when I got him here, I wanted to let him rest."  
"Let him _rest_ -"  
Peter pulls away from her then, head down and hands suddenly back at his sides. "I can hear you. I'm right here and I'm not deaf." he snaps.  
"Peter.."  
"We're not doing this again, kid, come on." Tony interjects as Peter begins shifting farther away and soon rising to his feet.

"Doing what again?" May asks, no where near trying to hide the exasperation in her voice as she spares no more than a glance in Tony's direction again. "How long-- Peter?"  
He was already on the together side of the room. She didn't even hear his feet padding across the hard floors. Maybe she wasn't paying close enough attention. It would certainly make sense, given how her attention was being pulled back and forth between two narratives it felt like. Half of her wanting to shout at Tony until every last detail was ripped into the open while the other half just wanted to figure out how to calm her nephew down.

"He tried to leave yesterday-"  
"And you what- tied him down?!"  
"Oh and what did you want me to do? Huh? Let him go freeze to death?!"

Huffing in annoyance May stands and turns back to where Peter was supposed to be, finding him pressing his back against the wall with an expression on his face she can't place. Can't even remember if she's ever seen that look before. Her lips part to say something - anything - but the longer she stares the worse Peter's eyes seem, and the harder it is to find the right words.

"I was right." She can't tell who he was talking to; himself, May, or Tony. In the end it doesn’t matter because he seems to be the only one who knows what it even means. Tony tries to chase him when he starts climbing the wall. Peter moves fast and suddenly May understands Ned’s unease when he mentioned the sighting of his friend. It was bizarre how differently he moved, how flat he could hold his body to the wall while he climbed with his fingers and toes. His hips were slightly restricting of the movement, unlike his arms. He could only turn his legs out so much before his anatomy protested but it was still enough more than it used to be and she wonders what happened to push him to new levels like this.

[...]

_Sweat gathers slowly on his forehead. Trapped in such a small space his own body heat betrays him and makes it twice as warm as it should be. It took so long to find this spot that he feels like an idiot, but he still doesn't know how long it's really been or if it was mostly just a feeling. There was a secret panel in one of the maze walls that opened this up to him; a place inside the hand-made barriers to slip into. The problem was it was barely big enough to even fit Peter's body shuffling in sideways. He couldn't move quickly. The material of whats left of his suit drags against the cement. It wasn't stealthy in the slightest but if they don't know he's found the tiny tunnel yet it just might be enough to hide out until the next meal._

_Time isn’t any different in this spot than anywhere else, only hotter. The seconds ticking by aren’t trackable. He can count them until they turn into minutes and then count those as well but it never helped. He doesn’t know how long it’s been up until now since his last break, and even if he did he’s long since given up on finding a pattern for when they happen._  
_He counts anyway._  
_Seconds, minutes, closer and closer to an hour until he hears their footsteps. Two of them in the distance getting closer. He can hear them discussing with each other the areas they’ve searched already. He counts the their steps._

 _1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10._  
_They were right by the wall._  
_11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18._  
_They’ve gone past, but they’ve stopped. Peter can feel his heart in his throat. His fingers almost burn again in memory of the last time they caught him. They were cheaters for making a competition in a maze they designed themselves. His hands shake, lightly pressed against the concrete in front of him so snugly that he couldn’t even turn his head forward._  
_18\. The steps come closer._  
_17, theres a soft pat. A hand hitting a shoulder, back, or chest. One getting the other’s attention._  
_16._  
_15._  
_14, Peter can hear a breath- a whisper just soft enough even he can’t make out the words through the wall._  
_13, maybe he can, physically, but his mind wasn’t focused enough to put the sounds together._  
_12, he wants to bash his head on the wall himself, knock himself out before they can. Maybe if it was a physical knock out instead of a drug he’d even sleep through part of their hour._  
_11._  
_10._

_The panel is ripped off._  
_No amount of flailing as he's pulled out of the hole helps. He was theirs for the next hour, as if he wasn't always anyway. Still Peter has enough pride left to not go quietly. He kicks and scratches and tries to use what's left of his super-strength before the needle is quickly stuck into his skin._

_Peter glares at dead eyes as he's tied down to the table. Even just waking up, his mind still fogged, he has the sense to be furious. Masks constantly hid their faces, even their eyes covered with tinted lenses, surely to make sure that even if he made it out alive he could never describe them to anyone. He might be almost flattered that despite all of their efforts, they were prepared for him to win._

_He freezes when he hears the fire light. They've never used a fire before. A blow torch once, not an open pit of any kind. He should be used to this. He should be calm. Pain was pain. It shouldn't matter anymore and yet despite knowing this and telling himself, Peter's heart begins to race in his chest, pounding in his throat. Something coats his feet. Slimy and wet and lumpy. His leg jerks when he first feels it but he still doesn't look. One of the masked when chuckles._

_The table begins to slide on it's wheels, pushed closer and closer to the fire. The slime on his feet begins to melt. It had to hurt. It was going to hurt, but so far his skin was growing hot but not burnt. He was fine. He doesn't know why. Would they pull him back and his feet would be coated in something solid as it cooled? Or would it soon catch fire itself and turn his skin black and red with char and blisters?_

_He grits his teeth. They haven't even gagged him this time. The one in charge today either wants to test him or simply wants to hear him scream. Maybe both. Either way there had to be a reason- there was always a reason. A motive for every little action, every little pause he came across. Nothing was pointless here. Every detail mattered and he knows this, but despite knowing it he was still trapped. He hasn't figured them out yet. He could be looking into college already at sixteen- he could have done so at fifteen if it wasn't decided he should stay among peers his own age especially the rougher his situation seemed to become. No matter how smart he was on paper though he was being outwitted by a bunch of thugs with too much time on their hands._

_The liquid doesn't catch fire, but it cooks. Fat, he realizes too late to prepare himself at all. It was boiling on his skin like oil- frying his feet until they become nothing more than giant red, painful, crusty blisters he can't even twitch without wanting to cry out. His body trembles every time they pull him back, letting the effects sit in until it almost seemed the fat had cooled before sliding him back to the fire. Tears involuntarily gather in his eyes, his face almost as red as his legs at this point; strained in the effort to keep his mouth shut against the searing pain._

_When it stops he's trembling. His body at least might be in shock. There wasn't much in his head at all. It still hurt. Stung. Burned. He hated them. He wanted them to feel it for themselves. But he couldn't keep track of the time, he might be released soon. Forced to crawl because his feet were essentially nothing more than giant blisters now. Maybe he'd just lay where they dump him, make it easy while his slower but still advanced healing tries to fix this. He could sleep through it if he was lucky. They wouldn't even have to catch him again, just pick him up and carry him off for more pain while the aftermath of this round continues to heal, and by time he was set loose again he could find a new place to hide- maybe on the ceiling this time if his hands weren't ruined as well._

 

_While he waits he tries to think. Plan. All he can picture is bringing the entire structure down on their heads._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That torture method was supposedly used during the Crusades in case you're curious... I heard it from a history lover I know.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a playlist for this fic btw. Not all of it makes sense so don't think /too/ hard on it but it all influences how I write Peter's mindset so maybe think about it some if you like bonus details and foreshadowing. Feel free to ask about that stuff, I really like talking about it and feedback gives me motivation.
> 
> 8tracks.com/another-loser/a-different-disguise

Peter wasn’t in the best of mindsets. Not in a place for making smart descisions. By the time he’s made it onto the next nearest rooftop, he’s begun to realize the potential mistake he just made.

He was dressed in even less clothing than before, nothing more than sweatpants and a shirt too big for his thin frame. It wasn’t as warm as what he had previously, but if he had still been used to the cold it would be fine. After all, Peter had spent weeks outside in a similar fashion. The first problem was the fact that his body had warmed inside of Tony’s home. He was clean and fed and physically at least he had been comfortable there. Coming out into the cold without so much as a pair of socks on his feet, Peter feels as if he’s been dowsed with ice water.

The second issue was inside of him; how his heart still beat quick even after he’s settled in a hiding spot. How his gut felt full of led or rocks. It was the guilt for leaving May like that. Maybe Tony as well, given how he had been trying to help but if anything Peter only felt bad that he left the man to deal with May’s wrath.

That too though he brought on himself by making promises he can’t keep and then sticking his nose where it no longer belonged.

He didn’t used to be so angry. Even in the maze there was a portion of time where even if he wasn’t exactly hopeful he didn’t think ill of anyone else. Only his captors. Only himself. It wasn’t until closer to the end that he felt let down. Or maybe it was the first escape? Being dragged through the streets, random civilians watching and shouting wether out of fear or concern and yet Tony Stark still couldn’t find him after that. He thinks that day was the true start of his hope’s downfall.

He wonders when May’s was. He knows she’s been tired. He knows she’s been terrified for him. Peter may not be mentally sound anymore but he wasn’t stupid; he knew his aunt and knew she was driving herself mad since he disappeared and he didn’t have to have been checking up on her to know that. Otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered letting her catch him; the entire point of being spotted by the few he allowed was so that they would know he was back. For each that message wasn’t intended as something slightly different but for May it was ideally to help her stop worrying so much. At least she knew he was alive and free.

He also knew, on some level at the very least, that that wouldn’t help a thing.

May is the only reason Peter considers going back. Tony could chase him down in a suit again. Drag him by his ankles back to the tower or the apartment. He doesn’t though, and Peter knows that was also because of his aunt. Because she knew him as well as he knew her and she knew that he wouldn't stay if forced to return. And she knew that because she cared. She loved him. She raised him more than his parents did.

He should go back. Logic says he should. His torn up, bare and lightly bleeding hands and feet say he should as well. His cold skin, his sore throat, his lightly throbbing head-  
He felt pathetic. He felt like he was a little kid again wanting nothing more than his family to hold him because he felt poorly. He felt like the child everyone said that he was. His idols, his neighbors, even his peers. It didn’t matter how smart he was or how much he’s been through, after all. He was immature still.

He wonders which would prove them all right; running away again or going home with his tail between his legs.

[...]

May waited two hours for Peter to come back, pacing and bickering with Tony all the while. Worrying even more, talking herself in a circle while he tried to answer the questions she asked to herself out loud. Where was he, why would he run, what does he think he’s right about, on and on and Tony had no answers. She knew that already, that was why she had to try not to yell at him every time he attempted to answer.

He offered to fly around and find the boy. Knowing Peter before all of this, he would have only tried harder to stay away if hunted down like that. He always got his space when he needed it and pushing for more made her feel like she was forcing him to open up instead of letting him, and that wasn’t real trust.

She wandered around where he’d been spotted before, no matter how foolish that idea was. Her eyes were peeled and on the buildings around her as she finally went home. The more time passed the less hopeful she became, if that was still possible. She’s been thrown around so many times now mentally that she felt as if she had a form of whiplash; first he'd been gone, then alive but hurt, then back but hiding, then here and then running.

Her shoulders hurt and her upper back. The tensions that’s been growing in her body since the first day was finally creating aches in tight muscle she couldn’t ignore anymore. She really wishes that she still smoked, but she hasn’t done that since she was a teenager almost.

Whiplash comes to mind again when she gets home and sees the bathroom light on. Immediately but not pessimistically, she goes and gets a baseball bat from the kitchen. It wouldn’t be much against a gun aimed at her face but it was the best she had, and it wasn’t useless either. A part of her though, a bit farther back in her mind, wonders as she creeps towards the door if it was her nephew back home.

As it turns out, that part of her was right.

It smelled like stale water and rust when she got close enough. The floorboard creeks slightly under her feet as she comes to a stop. Then the bat fell from her hands onto the wood floor with a clatter and Peter sprang from the closed toilet seat to the ceiling.

May’s hands raise to cover her mouth briefly before one reaches out to him. “Peter? I’m sorry, it’s just me-“ he’s staring with wide eyes, body as flat as he can make it on the surface. Trying to hide or be out of reach of what scares him. Both break her heart a little bit more. “It’s just me..”

Peter closes his eyes, body loosening slightly. Suddenly his feet swing down as he hangs from his fingertips before dropping to the floor and standing up straight. His gaze is on the bathroom tile now, head tilted downwards. Lips part like he might speak but no sound comes out. May sniffles and reaches out to gently place a hand on his shoulder, trying not to startle him again despite how much she wanted to just wrap him up in her arms.

Peter meets her half way and pulls her into an embrace himself.

[...]

He doesn't talk much. That too was concerning but he does let her tend to his already scabbing over hands and feet where he'd hurt himself hopping from building to building. He claims at list that he wasn't otherwise currently injured, and knowing that his body would heal just fine helped May calm down. As much as was possible given the situation.

They eventually move to the living room. Behind it May makes them each a mug of tea while Peter tries to get comfortable. He doesn't seem to know what to do with himself. She wonders if he was like this at Tony's house too or if it was just her. She couldn't protect him like a superhero could- supposedly. May would fight harder than any of them would for Peter, and Tony couldn't find him when he was missing either, but she realizes that there really was only so much she could do if danger returned.

That was a bridge to cross when and if it came though. Right now she just needs to find a way to get her boy to calm down.

She brings Peter camomile tea with lemon and honey. Basic but sweet, and ideally calming. He sits on the floor after taking the mug, cradling it in both hands. May sits across from him, thinking she might as well. A quiet beat passes, then two, and then Peter takes a sip of his tea with a slurp and May feels the corners of her mouth twitching upwards.

She looks down at her own mug sat on he carpet next to her legs, starting carefully, “How did you end up at Tony’s?” Silence. May glances back up to see Peter frowning at her. “I’m not mad, and I won’t be. I just...”  
Peter swallows dry and replies just as quietly as May, “I can’t regulate my body temperature anymore. Spiders can’t and now I can’t either, and I collapsed near him. He took me to his place, I ran, he followed and we fought and I went back willingly, tried to run again but he talked me out of it.. fed me and let me try to sleep until you came.”

“Why? Why didn’t you-“ Peter shifts, un-crossing his legs and tucking them under himself instead. He sits there rigid like he might change his mind and need to move again any second. He was restless. Nervous under her questioning. May purses her lips and shakes her head a little. "I'm sorry, Peter. I just want to understand." She should know what to do here. She was a nurse, she's worked with trauma patients. She should know how to help him but it's different in the hospital. For all the empathy she feels every time a scared someone is in her care, she doesn't know them. She didn't watch them grow up. She didn't raise them. She could be objective in ways she simply can't with her nephew.

"You don't have to explain right now though." She continues, leveling a kind look into Peter's eyes. "I'll be here whenever you're ready, okay?" He only nods in response. She can accept that for now.

It’s quiet for a few more minutes - five or twenty, she isn’t sure - before they end up watching movies on tv. Peter still doesn’t speak, but he stops fidgeting and finishes his tea. May can almost trick herself into feeling like it was all normal. They later fall asleep on the couch. She watches Peter dosing in the corner for an hour before she finally drifts off as well, amazed that she still can.

When she wakes the sun is still rising. The air is cool, especially this early in the morning. Absently she thinks that they should have grabbed a blanket before settling for so long in one place. Looking to the left however, at the corner Peter had been sleeping in, she finds the space empty. Immediately her heart leaps into her throat, eyes shooting wide open. She turns her head so fast to search for him that her hair whips in her face, only to spot him hanging from the ceiling by his feet.

Peter blinks at her, hesitates, and then waves dumbly. May waves back with a huff in relief. "You scared me."  
"Sorry uh.. I want to shower but I didn't want you to wake up and freak out if I wasn't out here so..."  
She shakes her head and stands, unable to fight her tired smile. "Go on then. I’ll make breakfast.”

[...]

_No matter their agreement, Peter wasn’t still when they tie him up. The bonds are thick metal, not strong enough to stop him when he was healthy but now all it took to keep him from escaping. The edges dig into his skin every time with his thrashing. At this rate Peter can’t help but wonder how long it would be before he had scars where they rested._

_It's the table today. It usually is. A cold, metal operating table he suspects was stolen and modified just for him given how it came with it's own set of restraints to hold him down._

_Once he's trapped he admits he isn’t too difficult to work with anymore. By now he’s learned that there was no escape after this point. There were moments of continued squirming in some desperate, delusional fit wanting his freedom still, but Peter knew he wasn’t getting the upper hand until they released him back into the maze._

_He isn’t willing. His stomach churns as he hears something being dragged across the floor towards him and his arms tense in anticipation for what was to come. His spider senses didn’t let him relax even if his mind could._

_A towel is laid over his head next. The second he starts to squirm to shake it off it’s being held down at either side. There’s a squeaking noise that echoes in the room. And then the water begins to pour into his face._

_His jaw clenched shut, tiny breaths leaving in huffs out his nose to keep the airway clear. His pulse is quick but not dangerous until he runs out of breath. The sounds of running water, the wetness that leaks through the towel and onto his face, and the pressure it creatures against his skin, it creates an illusion he’s only heard about in film. Every hair on his body stands on end. His heart pounds faster and faster in his chest and his throat burns every time he tries to gasp for air despite the instinct to keep his mouth shut._

_It was waterboarding. It couldn’t be anything else, yet the longer he lays there the more he begins to question it._

_Suddenly the water is gone. He sucks air in through the soaked rag like a starving man getting the first meal in months. His jerking body settles into a steady tremble just before it starts again and he arches off the table in his attempt to get away._

Its waterboarding  
Waterboarding  
Waterboarding  
Can’t breathe  
It’s waterboarding  
But I can’t breathe I can’t breathe  
I can’t breathe  
I can’t breathe  
I can’t breathe  
I can’t breathe  
I can’t breathe  
I can’t breathe

_It stops again. He doesn’t stop squirming this time. His jaw shakes as he fights for a clear breath of air. He hears a chuckle behind him. When it starts for a third time he hears a throaty yell and is only aware as it fades that it was coming from himself._

_They continue on like this five more times. Peter isn’t keeping track by then- not even close. His mind devolves quickly into nothing but white noise and vague awareness for his body’s current state; the need for air, the fact that he couldn’t seem to find it. The next time it stops, there’s another squeaking noise first. As Peter tries to recover, they remove the towel over his head. The lights in the room bring on another wince as he struggles to even get his eyes open now._

_Someone pats his cheek and he recoils as much as his restraints will allow. The chuckling sounds again.  
“Not done just yet, kiddo.”_

_He’s exhausted now. Adrenaline was still coursing through his veins, he shakes with it from head to toe and even with the opportunity to breathe freely his chest continues to heave as he does so, yet every fiber of his being just wanted to stop and rest rather than fight again._

_He had to try though when he saw the jug of bleach being carried closer.  
“Open wide,” the one behind him says, hands clamping down on either side of his face. Peter locks his jaw shut tight, tries with all his might to shake the hold on his head._

_Then a fist comes down on his stomach. One time, then two, then three and finally his focus is weakened enough that his mouth can be pried open. His eyes squeeze shut once again as gloved fingers work their way into his mouth. He tries to bite down before suddenly he was gagging around the digits and the taste of rubber, the man’s free hand coming to slap him across the face. The one with the bleach sniggers, ”Keep your dirty hands to yourself.” It's disturbing how casual they sound. Chuckling like this was perfectly normal- though by now it was, wasn't it?_

_Still, the other one listens and goes back to simply holding Peter's jaw open. He squirms still, but considerably less for the brief moment of peace he has. Then comes the bleach, just as he anticipated, being poured into his mouth and running down his throat._

_Instantly his exhaustion doesn't matter anymore. He thrashes and chokes, alternating between squeezing his eyes shut and letting them shoot wide open as the burn increases. He can feel it all the way down into his stomach, like he was being lit on fire from the inside out. It travels into his nose as he fights to breathe again, mouth full of the chemical._

_If he could scream he would._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really conflicted about this chapter honestly. It's definitely not my best work lmaoo but I might be looking into getting a beta for this thing so maybe that'll help with the next one.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to Shoyzz for being the beta! And ofc I gotta give a heads up now; there is police questioning in this chapter and the next, and while there is law enforcement in my family they aren't detectives. I try to be accurate in the process but I'm probably not.

He might be beginning to find solace in water. Bathing at Tony’s, then again at May’s when he returned, again in the morning. Despite how exposed he was physically he was also behind a curtain and surrounded by warmth. It was like being in a bubble separate from the rest of the world. Safe from it all.

When he emerges he dresses again in the same clothes as before. It might be childish. Peter liked that the things he borrowed from Tony don’t feel or smell like anything in his own room. He doubts that it had anything to do with the man himself though. His things were unfamiliar. They smelled of fabric softener and expensive cologne. The material was soft. Likely the shirt and pants alike were older, judging by the worn and faded ink on the former’s chest. The apartment on the other hand smells mostly like pancakes. It smells warm and inviting. It smells like home. Peter hesitates before joining May again in the kitchen, his bare feet silent on the floor even when it changes from carpet to tile.

"...Pancakes?" May jumps about a foot in the air with a yelp. Spinning to face him, she laughs breathily and shakes her head.  
"No, uhm- no, waffles."  
Peter fiddles with his fingers. “Sorry.. waffles sound good.” He doesn’t like the way she smiles at him. A smile was better than a frown, but he might prefer to see how she really felt than be lied to with a mask of pity overtop of it.  
He doesn’t smile back.

They’ll have to tell the police something. They were looking for him. He was a missing person. He’s missed months of school and he didn’t know how he would feel about going back. He probably won’t graduate with his class. Ironic, considering that he could have already tested out of high school last year. Maybe he could see what tests were available and skip a grade once he gets back in the groove of studying again.

He thinks about it passively as they finish breakfast, feeling distant from the subject. It was bizarre in that way; having his old life in front of him, inviting him back in and yet he felt like he was on the outside looking in. Separate from that version of reality.

“If there’s anything...” May starts hesitantly, finished with her plate of waffles but hovering at the table with Peter. “I don’t know what you’ve been through. I don’t think I have for a while but this- if there’s something you can’t handle, let me know. As much as I want to I know I can’t just put the world on hold and protect you so.. if there’s anything I can do that makes it easier, tell me. Any triggers you might have-“

Peter cuts her off with a snort, but she smiles more genuinely. “I know. But I mean the real thing, the medical term.”  
“..I know.” He concedes quietly, the corner of his mouth twitching as well.  
“We can get you a therapist sometime, sooner rather than later I hope if you’d rather hear it from someone else or talk about it with someone else- someone less involved. Just remember that I’m here for you, I’ll do whatever I can.”

He already knows that too. Despite the nagging in the back of his mind that something was about to wrong, he is aware of who he was with. May was the only family he had left. She would give the world for him and always made sure he knew it growing up.

Instead of saying so, or anything else for that matter, Peter just nods.

[...]

The first person they reach out to is Ned. Or, more specifically, May calls Ned’s mother and Peter listens to their conversation from the living room. It's more emotional than he expected, though he isn't sure why. Mrs. Leeds is just about crying with relief on the other line, asking about how he was doing, if they needed anything, how May was dealing with it all. May never went out much for herself. She didn't go out drinking or clubbing. She worked hard, about as many shifts as she could get. When she wasn't in the hospital she was resting at home, spending time with Peter.

There wasn't a lot of room for friends of her own but she had people to talk to at work, and the parents of some of Peter's classmates. He was always glad when she took time for herself and her relationships. She should have her own life. And after all the distress she’s experienced in the past year alone, he was glad she had people to support her besides Peter himself.

He heads for his bedroom as the thought crosses his mind. It wasn’t any less true with him around, but he was treating the topic as if he wasn’t. As if he was going to disappear again, and May needed a backup plan because she’s always leaned on Peter in ways and he won’t always be here for her.

It should be the other way around. Older people were supposed to die first. Parents before their children. He should worry for himself when she isn’t around for him but while the possibility was of course there, Peter is more concerned with his inevitable, early demise.

He shouldn't think about it like that. Every fiber in his being though was positive of what was to come. He just had to try to survive for May until then.

Laying down on the bed, Peter stares up at the ceiling with a sense of longing settling into his bones. He felt homesick. It was one of two homes he's ever known and yet it just didn't feel right. School sounds even more ridiculous. How would he do anything like before when he didn't even feel normal here? He wonders if this was normal for trauma survivors. Maybe he should look it up. Or ask May; she deals with trauma patients all the time, didn't she? Peter doesn't want to tell her how awful he feels though. She was worried enough. In addition, he also realizes that her job mostly meant physical trauma, shock, not the distant aftermaths.

Google would be better. Mr. Stark might know too. The idea of asking him though makes Peter actually scoff. Tony tried by finding him. He did good by calling May when he did. Peter appreciated the shower and rest he got while with him, but that didn't mean he wanted to reach out anymore than he did when he first escaped.

Shutting his eyes, Peter listens for May in the other room again.  
"I don't know how I'll let him out of the house ever again." She says with a sad but still genuine laugh. "Yeah, I'm sure... Thank you, really. I'll let you know, okay?" They'll want to see him, he supposed. Knowing the Leeds family, they'd probably crush him in hugs after dumping an easy five dishes in the kitchen. It was how they did things; with warmth and blatant care because he was always a nice boy and Ned's best friend for years.

He doesn't see them often. Usually Peter just slips in and out with brief greetings or goodbyes, thanks them when they offer food or tell him he's always welcome even though they don't know that much about him. They were nice people.

Peter doesn't want to see them. He isn't sure that he could even handle Ned, let alone his mother. What would happen if he did? They’d try to make him smile, ask how he was. They wouldn’t like the answer. Would he lie then like he’s always done? It’s not as if anyone would believe it. He wasn’t the same.

The next thing he knows, Peter is on his side and curling up for sleep.

[...]

He probably shouldn't be calling. He's almost positive that he shouldn't, but he reasons that it wasn't like MJ was going to gossip about it or show up at the Parker doorstep. And with that in mind, Ned can't help himself.  
"Hey, now's n-"  
"Peter's back." Silence has a way of filling the other line. Ned can't take it. "He came home. May just called my mom and she told me- she was basically crying so I kinda knew anyway..."

"Have they gone to the police yet?" His brow furrows.  
"I don't think so... Why?"  
"Someone took him, Leeds. The police need to know about that so they can bust their asses."  
"I mean yeah..."  


Ned pauses, shaking his head a little at himself. "I was thinking- I don't know when we can see him but did you maybe want to come with when I get the green light?"  
"I...I'll think about it."

[...]

Peter wakes with a thrumming in the back of his neck, running down his spine. It was a faint feeling but it was there, letting him know that’s he wasn’t alone. Still he moves carefully, slowly. His reflexes were even quicker than before, his instincts sharp to the point of fault, but they’ve been like that for a little while now. Peter is in control enough to move without care for the danger he could be in when rising. It would be louder if there was a weapon or a hand coming at him, anyway, and until then he would take his time waking up.

Sitting up, he groans quietly and rubs at one of his eyes. Hovering in the doorway is May, seeming to hesitate before walking all the way into the room.

”Did I wake you?” He isn’t sure. She set off his spidey sense, after all. Peter can’t think of anything that didn’t these days though.  
He shakes his head ‘no’.  
“Good..” She trails off, nerves more obvious than she clearly wanted them to be as she comes to sit beside him on the bed. “Listen, Peter, I know that talking about it is probably the last thing you want to do right now... but I did call the police to let them know they can stop looking, so, we need to go to the station to talk to them.”

He’d expected it, but Peter’s shoulders still sag forward in disappointment. He was tired. Far too tired to figure out what to do about this. He doesn’t have a story ready, but how could he tell them what really happened without revealing his mutation. Dialing it down, maybe. Making it sound more endurable. The thought makes him feel even worse somehow. He’s always been good at pretending he was okay though. Why not now? Soften the blows, let everyone believe it was nothing more than some sick gang members instead of the organized sadists that they were.

He can do that.

[...]

_His heart hammers against his ribcage. Down his spine and throughout his limbs a tingling sensation reminds him that he isn't alone, as if he could ever forget. He never was, not really. As far as he can tell, there weren't cameras watching. After all, that would ruin the game, and these men loved their games. That was all it is in the end. A long, twisted game. The chase with precision, but not enough to make Peter think they have professional experience. Not law enforcement or ex military; they knew what they were doing because they made the rules. A few of them fought like they'd learned the hard way, others more formal but truthfully that was a part of the reason Peter was so bothered in the beginning by how he'd been defeated time and time again; they weren't the best fighters Peter had ever gone against. Good, just not great. That was why they let him starve for days before starting any of this._

_He remembers telling them in the beginning - joking still, wasting energy on sarcasm and insults - that he was flattered. After all, they chose him specifically for a challenge and even acknowledged that they couldn't handle him without an advantage. What a compliment to his ability._

_He wasn't comforted by the thought anymore. Now it was just disappointing that their plan, their ways of cheating, worked just like they wanted it too. It's more shameful than anything._

_That shame was a part of his motivation in fighting them. They might have caught him, they control his time table and his diet, they have the power to cut him up however they feel like whenever he misses a step, but Peter wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of breaking his spirit. It may not be a positive one anymore but he was nothing if not stubborn. If missing one step was all it took then he would learn - was learning - how to avoid that no matter how exhausted he became. He would fight every day, stop holding things back._

_Instead he throws everything he has into the next encounter; flattening himself to the ceiling until his hips hurt from the position he’s forced his legs to move within. He crawls that way, slow and steady over two heads. Not even his tattered sweatpants scraping the concrete ceiling make a sound._

_What does is another man coming around a corner and spotting his movement from there, calling out to his partners to give away Peter’s location._

_He crawls as quickly as he can, dropping down between the pair and the single captor, charging at him with all of his might. Peter slams him into a wall, his own shoulder screaming at him while the stranger grunts and coughs. The two behind him follow a mere second later, both pairs of hands grabbing onto Peter however they could. He was caught again. Flailing and thrashing, nearly screaming in his frustration while they huff with effort in between laughs._

_Laughs. As if he was nothing but a cute little problem, too stupid to know any better._

_Peter brings his feet up and kicks the man against the wall. A crack sounds in the background with the impact, his rib cage used as a bounce board for Peter to throw off his captors balance. Unfortunately that was all it did though. Their grip on him only tightened when he made them stumble backwards. The laughter however stopped. The one against the wall was in pain, wheezing and tense like he was afraid to move because of whatever Peter had done. His friends must be mad about that because the next thing he knows one was letting go and the other was shoving Peter to the floor, throwing his own body on top of him._

_It wasn't quite the feat he'd wanted. He wanted to break their arms and knock them out while he escaped. Still, knowing that he was getting closer, that one of them likely had broken ribs, that he'd actually managed to make them angry instead of amused- Peter smiles as they finally shove the needle in his neck._

[...]

He's only been in a police station once before. Just after Ben died Peter was asked to give a formal statement, May by his side and both of them sniffling while he retold the story of how he just let a robber run off before his uncle tried to stop it. He didn't even have an excuse and that shame somehow made it even harder to talk about at the time. There was no anger, no involvement. It wasn't as if Peter knew the guy or thought what he was doing was okay. He had nothing against the store owner either- in fact he had wanted to help. He just didn't. Didn't know what to do, what he _could_ do even with the powers that were brand new at the time.

As fate would have it, those powers were the same reason he was here again when it came down to it. He was only chosen because he was Spider-Man, not because of Peter Parker. In fact he's not even sure that the crew that took him had his last name.

He's in clothes that don't quite fit him right. His stomach is hollow again despite eating just a few hours ago, as if it couldn't get enough now that it had a taste of a real meal again. That was probably the case with his metabolism. His skin and hair are definitely clean with how many times he's bathed in the last 72 hours but Peter still feels like he's covered in grime. He definitely needs a haircut.

Despite being law enforcement officers, the fact that just about everyone in the office has at least one weapon on them - if not several - only makes Peter's ever-present spidey sense even louder. May doesn’t try to hold his hand, though she keeps looking at him with immense concern while they wait to be taken to a private room. He can’t tell if he appreciates it or not. A part of him wishes she would, just so that he’d have a possible anchor to remind him that at least one person here was on his side. He’s also aware, however, that he hasn’t been good with physical contact in years.

Peter hadn’t been an overly affectionate child after the age of eight but he appreciated hugs and pats on the shoulder until he was eleven. Then he’d made friends with an older boy, that friendship crashed and burned, and Peter stopped liking people being close to him. May and Ben had to learn to be mindful. When he befriended Ned not long after, he’d known from the beginning that Peter was jumpy and wouldn’t appreciate more than a high five, even - or especially - when he was distressed. It’d been almost five years since he stopped talking to Skip when he was taken and he still felt the same about physical contact; it was fine if he saw it coming, if he approved of it on a case to case basis, but in general he avoided it for comfort. He can’t imagine how he’s going to react now if someone suddenly put a hand on him.

When they’re led into another room, Peter and May sit beside each other on one side of the table while the officer sits at the other. He speaks to them politely, tone sympathetic and welcoming right from the start. He doesn’t know why but it isn’t what he expected.

”I know this is going to be hard, so I appreciate you coming to talk to me, Peter.” It could sound condescending, but it doesn’t. Peter shrugs. Unfazed, the man continues. “Your aunt says you came back home on your own. Can you tell me how you got there?”  
Peter rubs his hands together on his lap. “I walked.”  
“From where?”

Already there’s reason for Peter to pause. He knows the area it was in, not by name but he could place it. He could lead them back there. He could piece together his entire route home. He hadn’t promised not to in the deal made with his captors. He can’t find it in himself to open his mouth at all.

Realizing he wasn’t going to answer, the officer tries again. “It’s okay if you don’t remember everything- normal, even.” Peter only nods again. “Maybe we could start at the beginning? The earliest thing you remember.”

He's wringing his hands together already. “I um... I think I was coming home from my internship when they got me. It was dark out.”  
“Where do you intern?”  
He feels like they should know that already. “Stark Industries.”  
“Offices aren’t too close.” The man replies with raised eyebrows. “Do you always walk home?”

Peter shakes his head this time. “Usually Mr. Stark’s driver picks me up or brings me home, I just- I was tired and I wanted to walk.”  
“Okay.” He nods back and pauses, writing down what Peter assumes are his answers before prompting, “What happened next?”  
“I...” he was shot. He doesn’t know if he can say that though, seeing as he was sneak attacked as Spider-Man at a fake crime scene they designed instead of as Peter Parker walking home from Stark’s like he says.

“I heard someone yelling- asking for help.”  
May tenses slightly beside him. Peter is looking at the tabletop rather than the officer - detective? He hadn’t paid enough attention to the introduction - and can’t see if he catches the change in her. He hopes that he doesn’t. They don’t need questions veering away from the real topic at hand, it was bad enough on its own.

”And you followed the sound?”  
“Yes. I know I-“ he can’t believe what he’s doing. Lying to the police, acting like a scared little kid. Like he might have if before he got his powers, if he was honest with himself. None of it felt right. It wasn’t genuine. It was hardly even real.

“The last time I saw something happen and didn’t stop it, my uncle did and he got shot. So I followed, and the guy yelling had friends. They just.. appeared. Injected me with something I think... or- or hit me over the head or both I- I don’t really remember that part.”  
More scribbling on the notepad. Peter glances up at the man and sees his mouth open like he was getting ready to talk, perhaps uncertain of where to start next.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” He decides, addressing them both. May gives a soft “thank you.” But Peter doesn’t reply. The man clears his throat.

”Can you tell me what you remember next?”  
This was where things got tricky. Peter could be as honest as he wanted. Tell them what happened to him in detail if he felt like it, because he remembered far too much instead of too little like the officer seems to expect. He could play off of that as well; pretend to barely remember anything besides shuffling home. He can feel May’s eyes on him, waiting for the answers. She had just as many questions as the officer did. She wanted to know too. Peter feels his heart beating faster just thinking about how she’ll cry while he tells the tale. If she cries, he probably will too.

His hands stop moving in favor of squeezing impossibly tight. He can’t handle all of that. Waterboarding, sure, but Peter takes a deep breath, unrelenting in his grip but getting a hold of his voice the best he can. He’s hesitant looking at May, mouth opening and no sound coming out for a moment. The officer/detective picks up on what was going on and saves Peter the trouble. He can’t help but be grateful.

”Mrs, Parker.. would you mind waiting outside?” She’s gaping at them both, eyes flicking between the two in disbelief. Peter feels like he’s being punched in the gut with brass knuckles. “I’ll come get you as soon as your nephew is comfortable with it again.” He tries to reassure.  
It doesn’t really help in that sense but May does nod, swallowing thickly and nearly patting Peter’s shoulder. She barely hesitates in time and by then Peter is already tending preemptively. May nods again to herself and stands, offering gently, “I’ll just be right outside the door.” In a broken voice.

As expected, Peter wants to cry. His eyes sting and cheeks feel a bit warm but his vision has yet to even blur. When the door clicks shut behind his aunt, he turns to face the man again, eyes only holding his gaze for a beat before dropping back to the table.

”There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Peter. None of this is your fault.”  
He scoffs without a trace of amusement and rather than reply to the reassurance, he decides to answer the last question instead, as if it was any better. “I woke up in a concrete room. Handcuffed to a table. One came in, I guess he was the leader..”

“How many were there?”  
“Five, I think.”  
“Was there anything distinctive about any of them? Any details could help, even if it seems ridiculous.”  
“...No. They all wore the same thing, just black from head to toe. Even goggles. Gloves.” He winces involuntarily looking back at the early memories, trying to picture his captors just standing around in their dark sweats and custom masks instead of creeping around corners with needles and knives.

He winces because he pictured the latter anyway. “Take your time.” The officer-man says in response to Peter’s discomfort.  
He shakes his head and continues on his own. “I couldn’t even tell them apart if they didn’t talk. And their voices...”  
“Did you recognize them?”  
Another shake of his head.  
“Would you if you heard them again?”  
A deep breath in. “Yeah. Yes.”

”Alright.. You said you woke up in a concrete room, so you remember what happened next?”  
Mouth open like a fish, he searches for a response in his own head and draws only images. Nothing to offer. “Can we take a break?”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another thanks to Shoyzz for the beta!

Peter had five minutes to be by himself. It was all he asked for from the detective, and with it he asked to be alone rather than have May sent back in to be with him. He feels even worse for that; not letting her even try to help when he knows that that was all she wanted to do. He was selfish enough now to not let that influence his decisions though. All Peter was doing was pacing anyway, tugging at his hair while he tries to think. He really wasn’t prepared for this.

A knock at the door before it slides open lets him know his time is up. Peter knows he looks even worse - he at least feels like it - but there was no fixing it now.

“Are you alright to continue?”

No. “Yeah.” A pause then as the man takes in his disheveled appearance.

“Do you want your aunt in here?”

“No, no I’m fine..” he says, making his way back to his seat. He gets a nod in return and they settle into a tense silence, if only for a moment.

“Do you want to start over?”

He shakes his head, saying with a humorless, breathy chuckle. “I just want to get it over with…”

”I understand.”

“I um... I woke up there, I tried moving but the cuffs wouldn’t let me- my hands or my feet. My eyes hurt with the light... Then he came in, and he said... he said not to bother struggling, or asking for help because no one could hear me and there was no point. And he said they weren’t going to kill me - that I might even get to go home if I did what they said.”

He has a feeling which part makes the detective pause, though Peter can’t help his hands fidgeting restlessly regardless.

”He said they’d let you go?”

“Paraphrasing.. but, pretty much.”

“And what was it they told you to do for them?”

“...Hold still.”

[...]

_ "Y'know, I kinda wish he still talked for this part." one man says to another. His voice is deeper, but his speech patterns and tone makes him sound more immature. Peter doesn't bother trying to put names to any of them, seeing as he'd have to make them up as well as the fact that it might make them feel more like people. He didn't need to humanize his captors. _

_ The one he's talking to scoffs and replies, amused, "Well he might if you make him, won’t he?" Peter doesn't know if they really have a leader, but if they do, it's this one. His voice was the first one that greeted him when he'd woken up in here the first time. It haunts his thoughts sometimes while wandering the maze. He isn't sure it would ever leave. _

_ "How about it, then?” The other asks as he leans down, bringing his face directly in front of Peter’s. “Gonna sing for me?” There’s a scalpel in his hand, but it isn’t exactly close to Peter’s skin just yet. He clenches his jaw shut. The leader’s hands come to hold the sides of his head almost gently. _

_ “Don’t be so stubborn, kiddo.” He says, something in his voice ringing familiar. It sends a gross shiver down Peter’s spine and makes him want to bite through his own tongue if it means continuing to disobey. _

_ Something must change in his face because there's more sniggering all of a sudden. His captors share a look before turning their attention back onto him, and the blade comes down on his chest. It's slow at first, pressing down more and more until his skin finally tears around it. He's getting used to pain like this. So used to it in fact that the closest thing to a flinch is a twitch in his face. Peter forces a disgusted, bitter smile onto his face. _

_ The blade begins to drag, cutting smooth and deep across his chest. He huffs out a breath through his nose, but even as his chest shrinks and expands again the scalpel follows, only digging in deeper to keep up with the movement. "Aw come on now.." The one coo's. _

_ He’s all out of room for the one stroke. When it ends Peter dares force his own little chuckle. The leader hums thoughtfully, not seeming to disapprove of his attitude in the slightest. His stomach twists even tighter in its knot. The other one still holds the weapon and with his free hand pinches skin on Peter’s arm, seeming to try and pull it up almost to rip it clean off- and then he realizes what the plan was. The white hot burning of his fearful anticipation washes over his body. _

_ ”All you gotta do is sing.” He’s reminded. Times like this it was a war within Peter’s own self. He was smart enough to know what he had to do, he had enough self preservation to be tempted by it. He knows what the smart voice is; to give in and obey. Do as they ask not to avoid pain but to lessen it, because that was all he had in this place. At the same time however that very notion went against Peter’s very identity. He wasn’t weak. He might never be more than he was before this, what the majority think of Peter Parker, but he was not weak. He was not a quitter. He was not submissive, even if it would be wise to be. _

_ It takes a moment to gather enough, given how dehydrated he always was, but Peter manages to shoot spit at the one with the scalpel. In response the man recoils, making a noise of disgust at either the spit itself or the disrespect, Peter can’t tell. He grabs harder at Peter’s skin before slicing off what he had a hold of. He can’t fight the jerk of his body in response, a grunt through his teeth. _

_ “You disgusting fuckin’ mutant!” The leader tisks his partner’s outburst but does nothing to stop him or manhandle Peter any further, only continues stroking his hollow cheeks with idle fingers, palms pressed to either side of his head. _

_ ”Fuck you.” Peter growls, voice low and rough. _

_ “Oh! He does speak!” The knife comes back down to stab him shallowly in the arm. “Just gotta give him the right motivation, huh?” _

_ After his initial wince, Peter does his best to look the man in the eye as he bites back, “Not you.” he looks back up at the leader hovering right above his head. “You.” _

_ That one is curious, if his sudden stillness is anything to go by, while the other is furious to not have his way. Peter spends the rest of the hour being cut open and stabbed. Never enough to let him die and ruin their fun. Never enough to let it end, but he expects no less. _

[...]

Peter can't imagine, in retrospect, that it's an easy thing to hear. He would be horrified to listen to this story if he hadn't been the one to experience it. The detective seems surprised but to his credit all he really does is frown and furrow his brow. "..Do you remember what happened next?"

"He...Left." It felt a bit blurry to look back on. The words stuck out so much more than the silence that day.

"Okay...And then what?"

Peter shrugs. "They left me there."

"For how long?"

"A while." He pauses for a deeper breath. "I think it was a day, maybe. I fell asleep at some point. There wasn't any daylight, no clocks. They turned the lights off randomly. I don't know how long any of it lasted, just that they were letting me starve for a while first." There's more writing then. For some reason Peter bristles at the action. They had to have it all on paper for a number of reasons. He knows and understands this just fine, yet feels like he was some kind of spectacle because of it. He tries not to let the feeling show.

"Can you tell me what happened after they came back?"

"I tried talking to them. Two of them. They didn't listen- they'd laugh, and then they... They um.... I-it gets blurry here."

The officer-man’s tone is tinged with sympathy once again when he replies, “It’s okay if you don’t remember, Peter. We can take another break if you need, or you can just tell me what you do remember.” He wishes he could hate the man more for his welcoming demeanor. It would be easier to avoid all of this if he was angrier. Peter shakes his head at himself.

“They'd always inject me with something before they hurt me. I'd wake up tied to the table again. The lights always hurt my eyes...I'd be dizzy and then... They waterboarded me a few times. Cut my arm open... It just- it all-- fades, in and out a lot."

There's another pause, assumably while the man was processing what Peter had told him. He doubts it was entirely a surprise; they had to be up to something when they held a boy for two months and Peter looked like garbage. He hopes as well that this wasn't the first kidnapping case this man has worked, no matter what his official title was. He's probably heard enough bad things before. The fact that he was continuing to be as human as he was professional, in this moment, helped a little. The sympathy might be frustrating to deal with but at least he was being taken seriously.

“What happened when they weren’t hurting you? Did they keep you somewhere else or in the same room-“ Peter is already shaking his head.

“No. No it was a-“ the words are on the tip of his tongue. He could see it in his mind, map out almost every detail of the maze. His hands go rigid with tension. He could lead them there. Between the structure, the size it had to be, how far away from the city and even without the exact location he remembers what direction it was- they could find it. Records would be found of whatever was there before, they’d look and find what was left of it even if the men weren’t there any longer. It could be a closed case. It could be over.

“It was a different room. Smaller. I don’t know why, it didn’t really make a difference... they’d feed me sometimes, but they usually just left me alone in there until it was time to go again.”

Something must have changed outwardly. Peter isn’t aware enough of his body language or his tone, nowhere near in control enough to mask his nerves. Something had to be different from before though because when he looks up from the tabletop again, the officer is watching with his a new look of his own. It’s sad and concerned and something else he can’t quite place.

”We can take another break if you want.” He offers.

“No. I’m fine.”

“Okay.. does anything stand out to you? Anything they did or said? Anything clearer than the rest?”

Peter swallows dry, giving a small nod and once again lowering his gaze. “The leader always called me Kiddo, but none of them sounded old... Two of them sounded pretty young actually... Not like my age but not grown up, if that makes sense?”

"What makes you say that? The pitch or how they spoke?"

"How they spoke... Kind of like guys at my school- like bullies? They sounded 'juvenile' I mean…”

"And what about the others? The leader- did he talk like that?"

"...No. He teased me like any of them did but he was calmer about it. Sort of... They all laughed and enjoyed themselves but he... Him and one other always sounded different. Like it wasn't just fun, it--" He doesn't want to put it into words. He doesn't want to try and give an example- to even think of the examples. "It was different..." He mumbles instead.

“I think I know what you mean.” The officer says a bit slower, trying not to step on his toes but offer compassion all the same, maybe insight depending on where he took it. Peter looks up for that as well. “Some people- people like the ones who took you, there’s something wrong with them mentally. They find things like this exciting, entertaining in ways that you and I never could. Chances are this isn’t the first time they’ve hurt somebody either. People like this start small, and it grows not unlike an addiction. They’re sick, Peter. The one good thing about knowing that though, thanks to you, is that they’ve left some kind of a trail in their lives that we can find and use to track them down.”

Peter doesn’t know how to reply at first. His nails dig into his palms harshly. It isn’t quite anger but it isn’t positive either. He feels overwhelmed with it, whatever it is, and it makes his throat feel tighter. A jerky nod is the only response he can scrounge up, gaze going unfocused. He's never been skilled with words. Peter was under no delusion. All the same he isn’t sure that he can recall the last time he struggled this badly to know what to say. He opens his mouth to speak, drags in a shaky breath, and says the first thing he can think of.

”Is there um... is there anything else you need?”

The man seems as if he would be taking mercy on Peter today, answering, “can you tell me about when you got out? That’ll be the last of it today. I might need you to come back in though.” He pauses at that, mulling over his options before agreeing quietly.

”It.. it wasn’t any kind of goodbye. They just- stopped showing up. And eventually I tried the door and it was open, so I walked around until I found the exit.”

“They just left?”

Peter shrugs. “Yeah, pretty much... the day before- or- or whenever it was, the leader was being really cryptic, I guess. Asking what I’d do if I got out, if I’d go back to my family, or back to school... my school, specifically. I didn’t... I don’t know what I said back, if I said anything it just- I remember that.” How could he not? He blatantly told Peter that he knew where he went to school. And maybe the name was a bluff; it was one thing to see the name on a building he came out of and another to actually have his personal information. It had still shaken him then just like it did in the beginning to know he might not ever be free of these people.

Of course, those doubts were more likely an attempt at denial more than actual likelihood.

He clears his throat. “I fell asleep sometime after that.” There’s a moment Peter is sure the detective was using to process the information and make his conclusions before continuing.

“Do you know where you were when you got outside? The area?”

He’s already shaking his head before the question finishes. “I’ve been trying but it... I remember the last door. And gravel digging in my feet. I just..kept my head down I guess. I was so tired.. And the next thing I knew I was waking up again, in an alley. It's clearer after that but I already knew where I was generally so I kept going until I got home."

"Did anyone stop you?" If he didn't know better, he'd think the cop was confused. It takes a moment for Peter to grasp the question, but he realizes it wasn't about his captors but the fact that he'd been walking through the city barefoot and dirty.

Another shake of his head. "Probably just looked like another homeless guy in New York." The man nods, quietly closing his notepad after one last line being added.

Peter waits patiently. Soon there was a card being slid across the table, one he picks up carefully with too-long fingernails and examines closely. "It's my information. If you ever remember anything, if you need anything, I'm here to help." It was nice. Peter feels the urge to scoff, as if the idea of the detective's help was ridiculous. If he was honest with himself he'd be able to say that that wasn't the case at all. Admit that there was just a hint of a warm feeling in his chest at the kindness he's been offered. It was easier to be sarcastic.

"So you are a detective..." Peter notes quietly as he stands, sliding the card into his pocket. "I wasn't paying attention earlier." He explains with a sheepish, apologetic smile. The detective smiles back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus concludes the investigation portion- for now. I've been finding some more solid direction for Peter's feelings and where he's going to go from here, which is super good for all of us. I'm having a little debate with myself rn about what the next chapter will cover though so I can't say it'll be a fast update, but who knows.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Shoyzz, again for the beta and also helping me brainstorm!

When they step out of the room May looks even more worried, if that was possible. Peter feels a pang of guilt returning to his chest. The detective offers her reassurances, explains how and why they’d need to come back in, and sends them on their way. Peter follows quietly, sits in he car quietly, walks into the apartment quietly. May doesn’t push him for anything. They both steal glances at each other all the while, mostly when the other isn’t looking. It’s a quiet back and forth built on air so thick with emotion that it could be cut with a knife.

Peter wants another shower. His skin is clean, as is his hair. His shoes have a small bit of water on the bottom from the damp ground but they would dry by the door.

He ignores the dirty feeling on the skin and goes to the kitchen instead. At the very least Peter needed water, his mouth dry and head hurting again. Food was falling into the backseat, yet he knows that he needs it now more than ever. It was a tricky balance at the moment; hating how he feels, knowing some of the steps to take to fix it, yet feeling no motivation to follow through.

The thought doesn’t help his appetite at all, only adding to the emotions that made him closer to nauseous than hungry.

The water filling his glass runs over the edge and down his hand. The sudden cold at least brings him out of his head, but back into a moment he still didn’t know what to do with. Nothing felt right. Not here nor anywhere so far.

”Peter?” May asks as he’s gulping down the beverage to a level he can actually carry without spilling. “I know um... I know it can’t be easy to talk about what happened. I’m proud of you.”

Peter reaches for a towel to dry his hands and the outside of the glass, silent.

[...]

Things move slow through the next week.  Peter showers three times a day or not at all.  He and May eat together for breakfast and dinner but Peter tends to lose his appetite near the middle of the day.  They suspect it had to do with when he was actually being fed before, though it could be a number of other possibilities.

All in all it didn't feel too important so long as he could eat something at some point.  That was all that May cared about, at least, and Peter understands.  He isn't nearly as calm about it though.

It's out of spite mostly that he finally called Ned, specifically to meet for lunch.  How happy May seemed when he told her the plan helped. She's been smiling for his benefit a lot, he's also aware, but reading her was something he'd always been good at. They both know perfectly well that Peter isn't fooled. It was the effort that counts.

There's a buzzing in the back of his neck, faint but ever present as he waits for his friend. The shop isn't crowded- in fact Peter had chosen it specifically because he knew it wouldn't be. the breakfast menu was mediocre at best and the coffee bitter but that meant that no one wanted to come in before lunch unless they didn't know better. Peter counts on it and he isn't disappointed.

When Ned finally arrives - in actuality only seven minutes after Peter - he almost misses it entirely, so stubbornly ignoring when his senses tell him warn him of another person nearby. It becomes too hard to maintain as the other teen approaches, every step making the buzzing in Peter's head louder and louder.

Peter's lips quirk up in a weak attempt to smile when they make eye contact.

"Hey, Peter." Ned greets, hands fidgeting in front of him briefly before he sits down.

He knows that he still looks rough. Clean at least, and steadily improving his physical health but the process was slow. Peter's metabolism was too fast for the two small meals a day to help him much, besides fending off the stomach cramps he got in captivity. Between the way his clothes hang off of his body and the bags under his dull eyes, Peter can imagine why his friend seems so weary right off the bat.

Ned doesn't look too different. A little more tired, but still in good health. Seeing him face to face feels different, Peter notes, like years had passed instead of a mere few months.

"Hey, Ned. Been a while." He tries with a downright pathetic little chuckle. Ned at least is sincere in his returning smile, no matter the look in his eyes.

"I've missed you, dude. MJ has too- she said she might visit with me at some point-- if you want, of course."

"She said that?" He doubts it. Ned nods enthusiastically.

"Yeah~ I mean-"

"It's okay, Ned. I'm not expecting a welcoming comity."

He frowns at that, like he was disappointed in Peter's resigned sort of attitude. Realistically, he probably was. Still, Ned concedes. "She said maybe. I think she's nervous to see you again."

"MJ, nervous?" Peter gives a short, soft laugh. Ned smiles again at the sound.

"Right? Dude, even Flash has been different." His eyebrows raise at that, and the other nods back at him. "When you just weren't in school he laughed and stuff but totally shut up when they put your face on the news. It's been _weird._ "

"Seriously?" He hasn't heard anything about what was happening without him. May didn't know about Peter's classmates, in fairness, and Peter hadn't bothered to ask. She mentioned the Leeds family, the nicer neighbors that checked in with her. They were glad that Peter was back, but he hasn't spoken to them; merely listened in while they dropped off cookies or meatloaf.

"Yup. Some people still try to joke about it but it's kinda falling on deaf ears, y'know?"

"Guess the implied murder thing can get to anyone." Ned doesn't find that one as funny. Peter's smile drops too along with his gaze, eyes focused on the tabletop instead. A beat passes and he stands, explaining, "I'm gonna get a coffee."

Peter wishes briefly for a line to be behind, if only to give him a bigger break from this conversation he feels so out of his element in. He supposed he wasn't trying very hard to begin with. It had only been a few minutes at best and all he's done is awkwardly try to lighten his tone for the latter half of that.

He drags a hand down his face, gives his order, and hovers by the counter while he waits.

It isn't that Peter isn't truly glad to see his friend- his one and only friend, his best friend. Ned had been there for his difficult, paranoid times after Skip left his life. Didn't make him talk about why he was so jumpy and nervous to be alone and - though it took a bit of time - just asked him if he had a problem with being too close or being touched. When Peter said yes that was all it took, Ned never pushed him into things he was uncomfortable with. When Ben died it was similar; Peter was angrier, more emotional, even gerting into a fist fight at school but Ned didn’t shut him out. Never made him open up if he didn't want to but gave him a safe place to do so if he wanted. Peter couldn't put into words how grateful he was for the amount of support he had in that relationship. He's only ever hoped that he was providing the same for Ned.

It shouldn't feel so different now. He hates that it might, but admittedly, it didn't just yet. The possibility was there with a flashing sign around it but in actuality, this would only be as uncomfortable as he made it.

Sitting back down, Peter rests his forearms on the table, both hands cupped around the warm paper cup and his gaze still avoidant.

”So...” Ned tries again. “Have you had reporters and stuff following you around yet?”

The corner of his mouth quirks upwards again. “Nah. While I was being interviewed May talked to another cop about it, they’re trying to keep the whole thing under wraps for now. Won’t be long before they have to announce that I’m back though.”

“That’s gonna be crazy!” Peter finally looks up at him, comforted by the brightness he offers like always. “When are you coming back to school? Do you think the hype will have died down by then or what?”

Peter shakes his head. “I have no idea, man. Right now my spidey sense is on so high alert I’m not sure I’d survive a day. Way too crowded.”

”Your spidey sense— even here?” _With no one around? With me?_ goes unspoken.

”Even with May.” It shouldn’t be an assurance, but it works as one. “It’s like- you know when I was bit? And I was jumping a foot in the air every five minutes?” Ned chuckles a little and nods. “It’s kind of like that again. My senses are dialed up to twelve, I guess until I get used to the real world again.”

”Damn... was it—“ he stops himself early but it’s obvious where he was going with it. Peter would be curious too, he doesn’t blame him. There is a brief moment however, where he wonders if they should change the topic again. Avoid it like the plague until the memories don’t make him so tense anymore. That day was so distant though. So far beyond his current perception Peter isn’t sure it would ever come.

He trusts Ned. He wants to, anyway. He doesn’t want to feel so ashamed like he has since he got back to May.

“You can ask.”

”You sure...?”

”Yeah, dude. It’s fine.”

“Well... I was gonna ask how they uh.. kept you? I guess?” He’s still trying to smile, sheepish and clearly afraid of crossing a new boundary. It’s both annoying how even his best friend feels like walking on eggshells around him, and comforting to know that he wasn’t making light of the situation. Sort of like the detective, Peter notes.

”It was uh..” he glances down at his coffee yet to be even sipped from. “It was a maze. Underground- I think it was a basement originally, under some place huge but abandoned because there wasn’t anyone on the next floor up but there’s no way they just dug out a whole this big and filled it with concrete without getting spotted..” Looking back up, Ned’s eyes are wide and full of curiosity. Peter has missed that look. He continues. "They put up walls and set me loose, basically."

"Why? I mean-" he takes a pause, hesitating again before Peter nods, silently giving permission. "What did they do? Did they say anything o-or do you know-"

Peter shakes his head. "They were smart. Talked a lot, but besides their voices I got nothing." Finally he starts to drink his coffee, feeling a barrier begin to lift. He tells Ned more than he told the detective- not in gruesome details the situation itself. Being trapped, being starved and chased, and what it all came down to. How bitter he feels about the point of it all, how long it took him to escape. He's truly honest for what feels like the first time since he came home. Ned is interested, hanging on every word. They treat it like it was a mission as Spider-Man more so than a trauma for Peter to now cope with, disregarding his messy appearance and the concern still in his friend's eyes.

When they finally run out of things to cover on the topic in Peter’s comfort zone over an hour has passed. He feels good about it. Even in this context his skin crawls upon recollection, but it wasn’t so bad. It was almost normal. They both sit back, Peter has almost finished his coffee, and Ned doesn’t seem so weary anymore.

”That’s so crazy... I’m sorry you had to go through it.” He comments, and again it feels almost normal.

Peter’s mouth opens to reply, only to freeze that way as a shape makes its way into his peripheral vision. Passed the window they were sat next to, a man in all black stands on the sidewalk, hovering. Peter closes his mouth, gaze growing intense with every second that passes waiting for him to turn enough to reveal if there was a mask or not.

"Peter...?"

He hears him, he blinks, yet can’t pull his eyes away just yet.

”...Who do you see?”

He isn’t sure yet. Peter sets his jaw so tight it actually aches, and then the man turns to continue on his way. No mask, no weapons. Going to greet a friend down the street. They hug. Peter’s body relaxes- not as lax as it had been before, but as much as it could be. Slowly he turns back to Ned, shaking his head.

“Nobody. Just kinda thought...”

”Oh.”

”Yeah.” A quiet beat. “I uh.. I should probably head home.”

”Oh, okay uh- I’ll text you? You still have your phone, right?”

Peter nods. “May has it somewhere. I haven’t actually looked at it yet, funny enough, but um... yeah, text. I’ll look for it. Thanks.”

[...]

The walk home isn't bad. Ned offered to come, but Peter knows when he needs space and he wasn't about to ignore that feeling now. At the very least he deserved to be alone when he needed to be after what he's been through.

MJ comes back to mind on the way. Peter can't really picture her being too concerned- not because he thought poorly of her, simply because he never got a sense that she particularly liked him around. That and it was hard to picture what he's never seen, though he definitely wonders about it. Likely something as subtle as she usually expressed. Ned didn't sound very sure. Peter hopes it was an exaggeration.

As nice as concern was in theory, Peter doesn't want anyone wasting their time thinking of him like that. He isn't sure he can handle it, really. Trying to smile for May was hard enough. She was doing her best, trying so hard for his sake, and knowing her it wouldn't stop anytime soon. Still, it was almost painful to respond in kind sometimes, and Peter knows it still wasn't ever what he wanted to hear.

She wanted him to be okay. To be how he used to be. He wasn't, and he couldn't be. Maybe not ever.

Peter finds his cell phone on May's nightstand. Unsurprisingly, it's dead. Back in his own room is the charger. After plugging it in, Peter goes to the kitchen for a glass of water to let it catch up. His diet might leave something to be desired but at least he was hydrated again with all the water he was drinking to either keep his hands occupied or fend off his hunger somewhat. It was probably the healthiest thing about him at the moment. He wasn't sleeping much. When he did it was brief.His hair still needed to be cut and his nails trimmed. May offered to take him to a barber or cut it herself already. He isn't sure why exactly he declined both.

From the kitchen he can hear his phone beginning to go nuts with old messages finally getting in. When May gets back he might ask how long she kept it charged after he vanished, if only because it didn't seem to be very long.

A bit reluctant, Peter begins the shuffle back to his bedroom. Even when it stops buzzing, the idea of seeing the things that had been sent is a bit daunting. Just waking up the lock screen shows a few message previews from two different people. If Peter waits another ten minutes to unlock it, he doesn't think anyone could blame him. When he does open it, he finds five names with notifications; Ned, May, Tony, MJ, and Liz.

Taking a deep breath, he starts with May.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all appreciate the time I spent trying to figure out the mcu's confusing ass timeline that actually made sense until Homecoming tried to imply it's 2020 so we're ignoring that like I assume everyone does anyway.  
> And now that I've done the leg work going back and seeing how many times I skipped forward- you all get an explanation of timeline that you might not even need really: this shit all takes place in 2017, assuming Civil War and Homecoming both took place in 2016. It's been an entire year since Homecoming, as Peter was taken in September and that is apparently(I was homeschooled, I don't know this shit) when Homecoming 'season' begins in high school. It has been approximately 12 weeks since he was taken and 4 weeks since he escaped, leaving the start of this chapter in early December.
> 
> Final note: tags are going to be updating from here on out, and for this chapter there is now the addition of implied/referenced rape/non-con. It is just an implication at the very end but you have been warned.

_-9/14/17, 8:32 pm-_  
_May: I hope you have a good excuse for missing dinner, young man_  
_May: Seriously, it's kind of scary to come home and not find you here.  I know what you're probably doing and I'm trying to not worry but I thought we had a system, here? At least a note, Pete_

 _-9/14/17, 9:46 pm-_  
_May: I’m going to bed, don’t forget to text me when you’re home._

 _-9/15/17, 6:27 am-_  
_May: Really? Nothing? You better be trying to catch your train to school or something_

_May: Peter?_

_May: I’m going to start calling around, you know I will_

_May: Ned says that he hasn’t heard from you since last night.  If you’re hurt and you didn’t tell someone I swear to god Peter Benjamin Parker I will kill you myself_

_May: Please pick up the phone!!!_

_May: I’m calling in sick to work today. You come straight home when you see this, okay? I won’t really be mad, I’m just worried._

_May: Peter please answer the damn phone I’m running out of ideas_

_May: I’m not losing anyone else dammit_

_-9/15/17, 2:56 pm-  
_ _May: Tony is tracking your phone and if you’re not with it I swear to god Peter I don’t know what I’m going to do_

 

They must have found it then, where the messages stopped.  They couldn’t be used as hope anymore.  
Peter’s breath shakes slightly as he taps the back arrow and selects the next oldest messages.

 

 _-9/15/17, 3:09 pm-_  
_Tony: Your aunt just called me asking why you didn’t come home last night.  If you’re seeing this and just trying to keep something from her you better fess up now._

_Tony: I have no doubt that woman will have my balls actually cut off and cooked if I come back to her with nothing._

_Tony: Come on, kid I’m already tracking your phone and looking for Karen’s most recent uploads to the servers._

_Tony: Answering the phone before I get to it would be real smart champ_

 

Another sudden stop as the reality of the situation finally sunk in.

 

 

 _-9/22/17, 4:12 pm-  
_ _Liz: I know we haven’t talked in a while, and I don’t really know what happened when I left... and I doubt you will see this since I don’t know who has your phone, if anyone_

_Liz: I just saw your picture on the news. I got a text from someone back at Midtown saying to go look._

_Liz: I’m actually really scared right now, Peter._

_Liz: I know something was going on with you before but I thought surely it couldn’t be too serious, knowing you, but if it has anything to do with this I don’t know how I’m going to forgive myself for not bringing it up or telling someone_

_Liz: If you ever see this, please tell me_

 

 _-9/15/17, 6:44 am-_  
_Ned: Why is May looking for you???_

_Ned: I know I’m supposed to cover but she said you never came home?? And I’m worried now too I’m sorry_

_Ned: please tell me she’s freaking out over nothing and you’re not  passed out in an alley somewhere_

_Ned: come on dude_

_Ned: please_

_-10/12/17, 10:56 pm-  
_ _Ned: I know May has this phone, but I just. Miss you dude.  We all do.  So please come home._

 

 _-9/14/17, 8:32 pm-_  
_MJ: check your insta already im sending some awesome shit_

 _-11/02/17, 1:06 pm-_  
_MJ: they say that missing children are usually dead within the first 48 hours.  numbers vary for adolescence but it isn't much better._

_MJ: point is, it's almost two months now and some guy a table over from me is taking bets with his buddies about whether or not you're dead.  
_

_MJ: i'm putting a lot on you being alive, i want you to know that when you get back._

 

Peter could expect what he got from May and Tony.  Even Ned was predictable enough.  The fact that Liz messaged at all was surprising considering how things ended after homecoming.  He hadn’t been as close to her as friends as he wanted to be, then proceeded to leave her high and dry repeatedly.  He’d felt awful for it every time it crossed his mind afterwards.

Admittedly, what makes him feel worse now is that he doesn’t feel so bad anymore.  That seemed to apply to a lot of things though.

[...]

_It’s during a dark cycle that he finds his suit.  Tired eyes long since adjusted to the shadows of the simulated night.  His body aches in too many places, from his neck to his knees, pain lingering in his joints even at rest._

_The suit stands out as an obvious trick.  When he first woke he had assumed they destroyed the thing if the tracker wasn’t working anymore.  He remembers wearing it the first day.  How it was pried off his body and the mask cut from his neck.  It hasn't been too long since then, he supposed, but somehow it felt like an eternity.  And now he isn’t sure what they did to it, what they wanted him to do with it, but he can’t resist the protection.  The suit’s AI doesn’t come online when he pulls the mask over his head, the body of it has to be wriggled into because the instant adjustment feature seemed to be frozen, but the material itself was supposed to have a small layer of built in defense.  That was one of the perk’s to Tony Stark creating it.  Truthfully Peter had thought many times in the past that he didn’t need the rest of the gadgets included._

_He wanted to make one of his own, in fact.  A simplified version, ideally with just a few of the features._

_The length of the fabric and the size of the gloves are about the only thing that fit him right anymore.  When it froze it had been set to Peter’s old measurements- his old mass. It’s loose on him now, not massively but noticeably.  It was a bit discouraging to see if he was honest._

_Despite the paranoia that he feels, Peter forces himself to sit down and fiddle with it.  The crew could appear at any second, his heightened senses so far wouldn’t let him forget that.  His heart was beating quick all the way up in his throat in anticipation for a speedy getaway at the first sound.  In the meantime, it was good to have something to do.  Something else to think about, even if half of that still revolves around his situation._

_He was bitter about having to do this.  About being thin enough that the suit that once fit him like a second skin was shifting across his limbs.  He was surprisingly less bitter about the suit being harmed, though he wasn’t exactly okay with that fact ether._

_It takes some time to find a solution.  What strength he had left and an intimate knowledge of the technology helped, of course.  Perhaps even the anger simmering under his skin.  All put together and the material was clinging to his frame once again.  Even as the only feature he managed to trigger, it feels like a victory._

[...]

 _-12/08/17, 3:04 pm-_  
_Peter: hey man_

_Ned: !!!  
_

_Peter: this feels weird_

_Ned: ?? What does?_

_Peter: texting again_

_Peter: i don't know why it's just like hey welcome back to modern life_

_Ned: Oh_

_Ned: Imagine what it'll be like when we get back into video games :D_

_Peter: mhm_

_Ned: Not a good thing?_

_Peter: no it is  
_

_Peter: it will be anyway  
_

_Peter: sorry_

He isn't very good at this.  Just like the start of the conversation during 'lunch' it felt too foreign and familiar simultaneously.  Too normal for Peter now.  He sets the phone down on his bed and goes to finish his glass of water.

He needed to stop thinking like that. He wasn’t a different person anymore. Still Peter Parker, still Spider-Man. And why did he feel different anyway? Because someone hurt him? He’s been hurt before. He’s always known he was a bit different from most kids his age.

What made this so special? How long it went on? How they got the upper hand? Was it just his pride that was damaged? Surely he wasn’t that pathetic.

He picks the phone back up.

_Ned: Dude no if something makes you uncomfortable that's okay_

_Ned: Peter?_

_Peter: it's fine i'm just_

_Peter: idk i'm kinda 'meh' about a lot of stuff right now  
_

_Ned: Oh_

_Ned: That makes sense though_

_Peter: thanks_

_Ned: :thumbsup:_

_Ned: Let me know if you need anything, okay?  Space, company, food(my dad really wants to bring food btw even more than mom like the second you say it's okay you're going to be set for the week probably)_

_Peter: oh my god  
_

_Peter: i'm not actually surprised but holy shit_

_Peter: thanks man i'll let you know_

_Ned: Awesome_

_Peter: ttyl_

It didn’t really feel any better.  He isn’t sure what he’s expecting.  With a huff, Peter drops back down on his bed.

_-12/08/17, 3:21 pm-  
_ _Peter: hey_

_MJ: holy shit_

_Peter: what’s up?_

_MJ: uh??? Not much I guess_

_MJ: when you’d get the phone back?_

_Peter: just now_

_MJ: thought it might be destroyed or something_

_Peter: it got left behind_

_MJ: oh_

_Peter: anyway uh you win the bet_

_Peter: i’ll ttyl_

_MJ: thanks_

He regrets that conversation more.  He isn’t sure why.  MJ didn’t usually care and if she did she didn’t want to let on.  He probably shouldn’t have bothered her of all people.  But then, who?

This time with a groan, Peter drops his phone and rolls onto his stomach.  He still needed to ask May about removing the second bunk from his bed set.  Going from a twin to the double sounded like a good idea at the time; May had been offered it by a coworker at the hospital for chump change, and it made sleepovers with Ned easier.  Now he felt vaguely closterphobic on either bunk and it just seemed like a pointless addition.

Sitting up once again, he pauses for but a moment’s consideration before the search for their toolbox began.

[...]

_He's begun counting the seconds.  Every now and again he stops, catches himself, and decides that he was being neurotic and stupid.  There was no other way to keep track of the time but he couldn’t just stand around counting seconds to minutes to hours and hoping not to be caught while trying to figure out how many days he was here._

_All he knows is that every capture was another hour of torture and for now he’d have to learn to be okay with that._

_Ever since finding the suit though, Peter can’t help but feel a little more on edge.  Maybe the numbers were to help with that.  Dreading what was going to come next now that he found their little gift.  The first thing they’ve given him besides pain and a single bottle of water._

_Perhaps that was the point.  Maybe there wasn’t any secret plan at all, just a trick to make him drive himself insane.  He wouldn’t put it past them, based on what little he knows so far._

_The first time they came looking since then, it hadn’t taken long but Peter managed to avoid them.The second, he was captured again.By the time he woke he was already stripped down to his underwear and restrained.They spent their allotted hour breaking various bones, poking and twisting the injuries until he passed out, only to wake in the suit again back in the maze._

_Time ticks on.He keeps counting. His raised suspicions and paranoia don’t lessen no matter how long it’s been since finding the little surprise.It didn’t feel right.Peter’s heart was instantly racing when the echo of boots sounds down the hall again, his hands sticking to the nearest wall.  He plasters himself to the ceiling until his joints hurt with how flat he’s hoping to remain, but it isn’t enough.  He was flexible, limber, but with the powers that gave him that much it wasn’t as if he tried to increase his range of motion until he was taken._

_It felt like every bad spy movie he’d seen as a kid.  Like a single drop of sweat was going to reveal his location and ruin everything._

_The ceilings are high enough that Peter isn’t in their direct line of sight, even with the lights on.  A part of him has wondered already if that was intentional. A benefit for him to make the game harder, or another trick of false hope._

_Two are walking side by side.  They're quiet, likely the two that Peter has noticed were more mature- for a lack of a better word. They almost seemed more sane, to him, but he realizes that they might have to be even crazier than the others to be so casual about the pain they inflicted._

_It doesn't even take a drop of sweat, however.  They know to look on the ceilings and find him almost immediately. He can't say that he really expected less so much as hoped desperately for it._

_Peter takes off, crawling as quickly as his limbs can carry him across the ceiling.  Something hits his back, hard, but he doesn't fall._

_"Itsy bitsy Spider...” One man sings._

_Their footsteps echo in his ears now that they’re running after him.  His own shoes scrape just slightly on the cement ceiling as he scrambles down the hall._

_He isn’t confident.  He should be with his suit, with his position and the adrenaline running through his veins.  His body was running on fumes all the same._

_Somehow the suit makes him feel even less like himself, unlike how it used to make him more so._

_Maybe that was why he got caught.  Or maybe it really was a physical problem.  It doesn’t really matter with the same outcome; Peter’s struggles were for nothing.  He’d kick and punch and squirm only to be knocked out once again regardless._

_When he wakes it’s with blurry vision and a foggy mind.  Truth be told he could have expected as much.  What he doesn’t expect is to have woken up so soon- knocked out with blunt force rather than drugs this time, his captors couldn’t control when the effect would wear off._

_It’s happened like this before.  Usually even then they had plenty of time, it seemed.  Now he was peeking his eyes open to see the floor from where he’s been draped over a man’s shoulder.  He must not have been out very long at all.  Just as he has the thought though, he’s dropped down onto the metal table he’s become quite acquainted with._

_Awake just in time, it seems._

_Peter sits bolt upright, leading the movement with a fist to the face of the one holding him.  To his right another pair of hands reach out to hold him down again, three voices cursing through their masks as they’re forced to realize their mistake all at once.  Peter grabs one of the second man’s wrists, twisting it around and pulling until he hears a crack.  Springing up, he realizes himself how dizzy he still was.  It might be a concussion, but Peter has fought through one before._

_The third man grabs at his ankles.  Before he can think, Peter is laying down the other way just to reel back and kick the man’s face as hard as he can.  Immediately after he rolls away, sliding smoothly to the floor from the foot of the table._

_There isn’t time to think.  The first two have recovered from his retaliations and are already lunging at him again, only dodged by a clumsy leap backwards that sends Peter onto the floor several feet back.  The first attacker is quick to follow, the second is readying for a chase, and the third was grabbing a weapon.  Peter turns onto all fours and scrumbles to his feet as he takes off._

_There was a door on the other end of the room that he’s never seen the other side of- or at least he assumes he hasn’t.  The maze was behind him, but he wouldn’t doubt some kind of trick sending him into a trap._

_He might be right to think that; ripping the door open, he finds himself running down another hallway as fast as he can.  It splits into two- Peter takes the right.  Suddenly the back of his shoulder burned, making his teeth grit together and his breath come in sharp.  His feet however don’t faulter.  There was yet another doorframe at the end of the hall, but no door itself.  Only a staircase instead just beyond it._

_He jumps over half the steps, slipping and grunting when he lands unevenly.  There was no doubt his captors were still chasing. In all likelihood they were right behind him but Peter can’t bring himself to look.  He doesn’t hear their boots anymore, only his own heart beat.  His spider sense screams as loud as his aching muscles, both sending pain throughout his body.  But at the top of the steps, there is a door.  It has three locks on it that he won’t have time to fiddle with.  Peter jumps up, sticking his fingertips to the ceiling, his shoulder burning even worse, and swings his body forward with everything he has.  His eyes squeeze shut._

_The door bursts open with a loud crack, thick wood being torn apart.  Peter flies through not an open doorway but a massive hole in the door still anchored to it’s frame._ _Now he looks back, seeing the mess he’s made in his escape and the men gathering while one turns the locks as fast as he can.  In the position he catches a glimpse in the corner of his eye- a knife sticks into his burning shoulder.  But a moment spared, Peter reaches around to haphazardly rip the blade out and runs again._

_His legs feel weak but he runs.  His lungs burn along with the rest of him but he doesn't stop to heave._

_He runs until he feels like he can’t run anymore.  He knows that he’s slowing down, and that they still haven’t given up.  It doesn’t take too long to find the start of the city though, away from the nearly empty lot he started in.  He tries to keep going for a ways before he hears something metal clicking behind him._

_Outside, freedom was fleeting.  Peter would only have to make it one day and he could go home, so long as the men kept their words.  It was so close to his fingertips that the chain wrapping around his ankle sends his heart plummeting to a place he barely remembers._

_Once, maybe twice he's felt such hopelessness and fear.  He doesn't want to feel it again- every fiber in his being recoils at the notion as he is torn from the building he tried to climb and hits the ground with a thud.  Fingers scrambling for purchase, legs jerking wildly to throw off his attacker, and then another pair of hands was grabbing his legs._

_He can see the bystanders then and only then, too preoccupied before to have noticed that only ten feet away there were people.  Strangers, sure, and not many of them but people with shocked faces and cell phones out to film.  Not a single helping hand._

_The three men drag him away. Peter grabs hold of a rock on the way.  The one holding his legs lets go, making the other two stop pulling on the chain in confusion, only to take his hand instead and slam it on the ground for him until he releases the stone.  His mask comes off a second later, while Peter's mind is still catching up to him.  It may as well be over then.  His hair is grabbed for leverage._

_The world is blurry when he’s carried back, blood matting his hair where his skull pounds worst._

_It’s like that he’s taken back inside.  Voices murmur around him, echoing off the walls as the three who captured him again explain to the remaining two.  He can’t bring himself to pay attention.  Jokes, mocking, biting words or discussion about how to punish him now that they’ve won._

_It was always like this, he thinks as he’s laid back down on he metal table and restrained.  He could do it again.  Bust out and run and hide.  Maybe next time he’d survive.  Win the battle.  The game._

_The corner of his mouth quirks upwards._

_Exhaustion seeps into his bones, heart still beating heavy in his chest.  His body still wanted to fight.  Trying felt pointless._

_”The hell are you smirking at?” One of them snaps, pulling him from his thoughts._

_Peter’s eyes are slow moving to him, head loiling to the side in the process.  “Was that the only way out? This all rigged from the start?” He asks._

_”No.” a calmer voice answers.  The first one that spoke to him when he originally got here- the one he associates as the one in charge.  Peter looks to him next as he continues, stood by the foot of the table.  “That’s our way in and out.  There’s another just for you out there.”_

_“Great.” He mumbles before turning his gaze back towards the ceiling and closing his eyes._

_Several sets of hands pull on his suit, prying it off his body once again while Peter lay motionless under their touch.  His last resistance would be refusing to help, making them move him around like a heavy rag doll to undress him.  It isn’t the first time they’ve had to do so, and it wasn’t much of a protest, but it makes Peter feel the slightest bit like he was expressing his anger._

_Protection removed, left in his underwear, Peter’s eyes cautiously open back up.  His legs remain free where they were usually restrained again after he’s been stripped this far._

_”I think you need a lesson in humility.” Their leader says, cool and collected as always.  Peter can feel himself going rigid, inch by inch just before a pair of hands take the elastic of his underwear and pull them off as well._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: the next chapter is going to be an author's note. I know that might be annoying and/or disruptive of the flow or whatever but I need to ask for some opinions/feedback on specific things and doing it in a note on a proper chapter is just ridiculous, I tend to ramble a lot okay?


	14. Is it a note? Is it a poll? It's something! But it isn't an actual chapter I'm sorry

Here's the thing- I have several ideas for future events of this story, but I can't decide between them and it wouldn't be the kind of story that I want if I did more than two of them.

I'd also like to note that yes the things I'm about to ask y'all about are quite vague.  I like some mystery to be left to this story and I don't want to spoil any potential future plans so I really can't give away much about each of these things.

All of that out of the way-- if y'all could please comment on this chapter with your opinion it would be really helpful! Knowing what I want to do as well as getting feedback so I know y'all are interested, all of that helps updates go faster.

1) Peter meets Deadpool in a little while.

2) Peter meets Wade Wilson pre-mutation.

3) Peter meets Harry Osborn.

4) More Tony involvement.

5) Avengers support system.

6) More involvement/the support system of Peter's current family and friends.

Again, only 1 - 2 of these are going to really be included, you have been warned.  Aaaand speaking of warnings, there are also some things involving Peter's mental health that I'm debating the inclusion/exploration of. You don't need to vote on those, but I figured I'd give the option-

1) some level of eating disorder

2) insomnia

3) violent outbursts

4) suicidal tendencies

5) self destructive behavior

6) all of the fucking above


	15. Chapter 15

Work away from Peter isn’t easy.She couldn’t hardly afford time off, but every instinct she had wanted to stay with her nephew in these trying times.He doesn’t talk to her about what happened.He talked a fraction of how much he used to entirely.  He said that he was going to get lunch with Ned, but Peter's appetite was fickle.  As much as she wanted to trust him, especially over something as small as this, she can't be sure if he was even leaving the apartment.

Tony had the right idea when he put a tracker in his suit.  She's thought so before, but now she was certain.  Not that it would help with the current situation; Peter didn’t even have his suit, and if she was being realistic May isn’t sure she would put a tracker on him either way, no matter what’s happened recently.  When Spider-Man was involved it made more sense, but Peter going about his every day life? It felt like such an invasion to try and spy on him.

May always liked to think herself a fairly lax guardian.  S he allows him the freedom to be out as late as he wanted so long as his grades were still good and he ate dinner wherever he was.  She gives him a bedroom door with a lock on it, never barges into his room without at least a warning knock first, never snoops through his things.  She and Peter were close, and he was a trust worthy kid in most cases.  Even as a teenager he made it a habit to let her know what his plans were in case he came home late for dinner or she wondered where he was after an odd shift at work. He keeps his room clean and laundry done, helps at the very least to take care of the apartment, doesn’t need to be told twice to do something, always keeps his grades up.  There was no reason not to give him his space.  She trusted him and as far as she knew, he trusted her as well.

Nothing there had changed.  When she found him out as a teenage vigilante they both flipped out initially(how could she not? He lied to her, put himself in danger repeatedly, and given her about four heart attacks it felt like since he started all of it just by letting her fill in the blanks when something big happened), he’d spilled his guts because that was what he did when he was too anxious around her.  In the end it was just a few more strict rules to keep them both happy and they made it work.

They made it work for an entire year, in fact.  And then he goes missing.

It wasn’t his fault, May has no delusions over it.  Peter was kind to a fault sometimes but even he would have known better than to walk into a trap if he had a bad feeling about it, she was positive.  No, it wasn’t Peter himself she was worried about the actions of.  It was the people who took him and who were still out there.  Them and Peter’s own mind that might be hurting him too.

Needless to say, she’s actually a little relieved to come home and hear life in the other room.  He was there, he was awake, and he wasn’t just staring into space.  He was doing something.

Doing what? She didn’t know how to feel about that part.  Stood in the already open doorway of Peter’s bedroom, May is met with a scene of wooden planks, loose screws, an open toolbox, and somehow a little blood—

The latter makes her stop breathing for a moment, but Peter was moving around just fine, turning to face her with a slightly pink face from what she assumes is exertion.

"Peter... What is this?"  She asks, not unkind so much as utterly confused.

"The-" He stops, setting down the screwdriver and getting to his feet.  "I don't like the bunk bed anymore, I just-- So I figured I could take it apart and we don't have to replace the whole thing but I don't want the top bunk so I can just shove the pieces under the other one or something."

Slowly, she nods.  "Okay, that's fine.  Just tell me why there's blood on that piece over there."  Peter's head turns to see the piece she was gesturing to- a corner, it looked like, of the foot of the bed.

"It slipped."  He answers, holding up his red forearm as he turns back to his aunt.  "No biggie."

It was a cut about three inches long.  There was red smearing around it, blood dried and haphazardly wiped away. With a deep breath leaving her in a sigh, May brings her hands up to rub at her temples.  He's always been a little careless about things like this.  The first time May ever saw him hurt was when he was a kid, fallen out of a tree with a broken arm.  He couldn't help crying, of course, but Peter still tried to smile for her and say it was okay.  Every little cut or bruise, every bump, if she didn't see it he didn't mention it.  That much was normal, but May can’t help the tension building in her shoulders so quickly at this.

"Peter? Bathroom.  First aid kit.  Now please."  He opens his mouth as if to protest, closes it again, nods his head and gets up to do as she asks.  It’s the small blessing of the day, May thinks.

She follows him into the bathroom where she can help, gesturing for him to sit on the toilet lid while she digs through the kit he pulled out.  The scene twists something in her.  The familiarity of it, anyway.  Like he was an innocent little boy again, before the world decided losing his parents wasn’t enough, he had to be beaten down at what felf like every turn.

”So.. How long have you been at your project in there?”  She asks to break the tension.

Peter shrugs. “Started a little bit after lunch with Ned.  I uh, hope it’s okay I went in your room. I wanted to plug my phone back in.”

”You don’t need permission for something like that, Peter.”

”I know.” 

“Good.” May nods to herself, bringing a damp hand-towel to her nephew’s forearm to finish cleaning away the blood.  “So you started hours ago, and..?”

”The piece slipped.  I started to clean it, but...” He trails off then, briefly, with a tone of voice too casual for whatever was going on in his head.  “Anyway, I sat around for a bit before getting back to it.”

That was fair enough, May thinks, even if she didn’t understand much of what was going on anymore.  She sets the cloth aside and takes some antibacterial gel next.

”Alright, well, we can find a place for the extra pieces after this.” She pauses, considering her next question. “Did you have much to catch up on? With your phone, I mean.”

”...Some. Yeah um. Your messages, and Tony’s-“ she wonders when he stopped being Mr. Stark.  “And Ned.  MJ. And uh... Liz, actually.”

Another pause, this time to just blink and process.  “Homecoming Liz?”

”Yeah. She saw it on the news.”  She doesn’t know why it was so surprising.  Peter was a good kid, even if he had a lot going on the last time that girl was even in town.  Not to brag too much about her kid but May thought she might like Peter, all things considered in what little she actually knew about the situation between the two.  All is to say it shouldn’t be a shock to hear that Liz had reached out when she heard the news.

The problem, she thinks, was the reminder that it was on the news at all for a number of reasons.   ”Did you.. did you say anything? Today?”

The cut isn't as deep as the blood made it seem.  May focuses in on it - adding a bandage now - while Peter replies.

”Not to her.  I don’t really know what to say, I guess.” And there was that voice again- that distant, passive sort of tone he had the first day back and periodically since then.  It wasn’t fully set in yet, this time, but May recognized it immediately. It was by far her least favorite noise.  “I replied to MJ.”

She was done patching him up now but neither make a move to leave the bathroom just yet.  Distantly, she realizes that Peter hasn’t been moving at all.  Not even a flinch.  She clears her throat.  ”Oh?”

“It’s weird...” he hesitates there, finishing his half cooked thought before May can ask what he means.  “When am I supposed to go back to school?”

”Well, um...” She scratches her head with one hand and slides the other into her pant pocket.  “I don’t know.  You’re pretty far behind already, and I really don’t want you jumping into something you’re not ready for- not that you can’t be, but you’ve been through so much... It  might be easier to just wait for next year and have you repeat.”

Peter had his moods like any other teen, but it’s been a while since she was met with such a blatant scoff.  At least for her he always tried to keep his attitude in check.

“I can test out of high school altogether, I think I can graduate with the rest of my class.” He almost sounds amused.  It feels more bitter.  May wonders which part was a part of her imagination, if either.

She nods.  “That’s true... Well, I guess we’ll just have to talk to the school, see what we can do.”

Peter doesn’t look directly at her.  May stands up and he continues looking at the wall just beside her.  Something changes in his face- just a flicker before he stands too.

She wonders when her heart beat traveled back up into her throat. It was the nerves without a doubt.  The feeling looming over her constantly- she knew she couldn’t protect Peter from the world but she had never really tried.  She wanted to prepare him for it like a good parent, help him mature and take care of himself.  She always felt she was rather good at that, no matter how badly she wanted to shield him from anymore hurt.  From the very beginning of this incident it was the first time she felt truly helpless regarding Peter.  No matter how worried, or out of her wits she had been before, raising a kid she never expected.  This was it.

”Why don’t we have someone over for dinner?” She asks, an attempt to break the tension and hopefully keep it at bay later.  “Ned or Tony, maybe?”

Finally Peter stands as well, shaking his head.  "I should um.. I should finish this."

[...]

He has two pillows now, instead of one on each bunk.  It's comfortable.  Maybe too comfortable.  Months of sleeping on the concrete, and for only brief intermittence, it made rest harder now.  Since coming home he has made progress, thankfully.  From one to two hours at a time to up to six, he thinks it was pretty impressive.  That didn't stop him from having moments like this though, or like earlier in the day.

He'd gotten restless trying to deal with his bedding.  Even just a week of somewhat more regular meals and his powers as they were, the set up hadn't weighed a thing to Peter.  The foot of the bed slipping out of his hand was a fluke- a fluke that had him pacing around the living room for ten minutes while he sploppily wiped at the blood before he decided enough was enough, he had to stop.  He laid on the couch and soon enough, slept.  A few hours went by instead of giving him the little nap he wanted.  Still not the full six he'd get at night usually but three still took so much time away from him.  His body didn't seem to mind dropping dead periodically like it used to, but now for longer duration.  Peter isn't sure that it was a good thing when he kept having lulls throughout the day and night alike.

Being able to fully extend his arms in bed helps tonight, but it isn't quite enough.  The pillows feel too cushy.  The mattress however is still years old, and while not uncomfortable or falling apart before, it wasn't as cushy as it maybe once was.  Peter is glad for that, but still sits up.

He rolls his head from shoulder to shoulder, getting three _pops_ out of his neck.  Rising to his feet, Peter moves to the window.  He's still in practice at slipping it open and stepping out, not making a sound as he does so.  He doesn't go any farther than the fire escape.  The night air is nice on his skin. It’s even colder than during the day this time of year, but the icy feeling at the tip of his nose is strangely nice.  Nostalgic, almost.  He’s spent so many nights already sleeping in the cold since his escape.  It still doesn’t feel right to think like that entirely; it’s only been a few months.  He wasn’t a different person.

He shouldn’t be, at least.

A gust of wind hits him hard but if he shivers with it he doesn’t notice.  The wind has been missed in its own way since he got home; the way it rushes pay him when he leaps between buildings, or when he drops from the roof and catches himself only halfway down.  If he had his web shooters....

Peter wonders just how much of a hero he is anymore.  He’s helped how he could this far, he couldn’t really help it.  The motive was still there, just none of the confidence.

Even when terrified he knew what he had to do, that he had to do it, and not a thing could stop him.  Now he wanted to do it.  He wanted to be good.  To help.  Yet the idea of putting a mask on and going out again made Peter want to laugh at himself.  He wasn't ever exactly okay but he had been better than this, at least, before.  Now what happened?

Another gust of wind makes his teeth chatter.  He really isn't bundled up well enough for this.  Peter holds himself there, and if his nails dig into his arms a little bit he wont acknowledge it.

[...]

The next morning is calm.  Light comes in through the window brighter than it's been all winter.  For once there weren't rain or snow clouds covering the city sky. A few moments to gather himself, and Peter smells something in the air.  Butter in a pan, maybe eggs cooking.

Peter rolls out of bed with a huff and goes to shower instead.  He still doesn't need to.  As opposed to the wind last night, however, the water is pleasant in it's warmth.  It doesn’t scald him like usual, nor is it cool.  He wonders if he could handle it if it was.

Ironic, Peter thinks, how he finds comfort in this place.  He’d been hurt in so many ways, most of which were too obscure for him to find common reminders in regular life.  It was blood and dirt and burning flesh, broken bones and bruises in his muscle tissue.  Admittedly the sight of blood on his arm from the bed frame mishap did do something to his mental state, but it wasn’t what he’d expect.  He was fine.  And simultaneously to all of these events, there was chemicals forced down his throat, water poured over his face until he couldn’t tell up from down anymore, icy water filling a tub they chained his neck to the bottom of—

Warm water was nice.  Maybe it was only the warmth that kept him from losing it and avoiding the shower altogether.  Maybe it was being able to control the temperature, like he’s been trying to control his meals.  Or maybe it was the peace and quiet, or the tingling feeling his skin gets when he turns it pink under the steaming spray.

Whatever the reason, he supposed he should be glad

Dried and dressed, Peter is relieved to see that May wasn’t waiting for him.  Breakfast would be cold by now anyway, if she did.  Plus, she had a night shift that evening, she would probably be napping in preparation for it soon enough.

In the meantime he joins her on the sofa, legs drawn up and back pressed into the corner.  It was more comfortable than it probably looked, but so were some of the positions he’d sleep in, and that was hardly new.

”How’d you sleep?”  May asks.  If she has anything to say about his constant back and forth with bathing, she keeps it to herself.

"Fine."  Peter answers with a shrug.  "You?"

"Not bad."

She sounded tired.  She needed more rest.  He wonders if he kept her up.  It wouldn't be surprising, given the previous evening.  May worried too much before all of this.  Before she knew about Spider-Man, even.  That was why she wasn't supposed to know in the first place.  Peter thinks he took after her in ways like that; both of them were worriers, more than Ben who usually had to be the voice of reason when his wife or nephew started running too deep in their heads.  Worried about each other, about friends, even strangers.  Not that Ben wasn't the helpful neighbor either.  He was just calmer about it.  May was good in crisis, usually, but while Ben could help and walk away and accept he did his best and that was all that he could do, May would wonder what happened next.  Peter did the same, but he was trying to be more like Ben since he got his powers.  Mature, level, but kind and never neglecting his responsibilities.

When things carry on and his aunt eventually goes for her nap, Peter is glad for the break but only partially for himself.  He wanted her to rest.  This was half of the reason he didn't want to come home originally- he knew what she would do.  He knew that she wouldn't just freak out, she wouldn't just worry, she would terrify herself with questions and assumptions and concern.  She didn't need that.  She didn't need the burden he was bringing with him.

Shaking the thought away, Peter retreats to his room and takes a seat at his desk.  He eyes his phone there.  No one has bothered with it since the day before. Peter didn't pick it up again and neither Ned or MJ messaged again.  He hasn't really thought about it until just now, but he doesn't think he minds that.

Still, he picks it up and unlocks the screen, hesitating.  He doesn't want to talk to them again.  It felt weird.  It felt pressured.

 _-12/09/17, 1:23 pm-  
_ _Peter: hey_

_Peter: i guess you might be in school right now so don't worry about it this isn't urgent or anything_

_Peter: i just wanted to say hey_

_Peter: i was kind of surprised to see you texted when i got my phone back_

_Peter: not in a bad way i just. i know we left things kind of weird. and i messed up a lot and i still wish i could tell you what exactly happened around homecoming because it wasn't just screwing up i mean_

_Peter: i wasn't planning on ditching you ever but it wasn't just an accident either.  a lot of stuff was going on and i thought i could be there for you like i wanted and balance it with said stuff and it turns out i couldn't_

_Peter: and i don't know why i'm getting into it right now i really wasn't thinking ahead this far but i've been wanting to apologize and explain as much as i can ever since you left but i guess i didn't think you'd want to hear it_

_Peter: or hear from me?_

_Peter: i don't know_

_Peter: i'm sorry  
_

_Peter: about all of that and the spam on your phone now  
_

_Peter: please don't feel bad by the way.  it was some rough stuff going on but it doesn't involve what happened.  you didn't put me in danger by not saying anything. it's okay_

_Liz: Peter oh my god. I don't even know what to say to all of that? Thank you for reaching out to me, and telling me all of this... It's kind of hard to believe you about that last part since you're still so vague about it, that sounds really ominous.  But I guess I'll try :)  
_

_Liz: I'm so glad you're okay, Peter.  You have no idea._

_Peter: oh_

_Peter: hi_

_Liz: Hi_

Apparently it was easier to talk to her when he didn't think she was actively reading his messages.  Suddenly he doesn't know what to say, not even in the word vomiting sense he'd just been typing with.  

_Liz: Are you okay?_

_Peter: yeah_

_Liz: No you're not_

_Peter: why did you ask then_

_Liz: I don't know_

_Liz: I'm sorry_

_Peter: you don't need to be_

_Liz: Would you tell me though? If something's really wrong?_

_Peter: i don't know_

_Peter: i've never been very good at that_

_Liz: Really?_

_Liz: Y'know what, I remember you kind of told me that once_

_Peter: i did?_

_Liz: When I told you I knew you liked me.  I said you weren't very good at keeping secrets and you said I'd be surprised.  I was trying not to read into it at the time but I guess that makes sense, huh?_

_Liz: Sorry, that probably sounds weird_

_Peter: i mean you're not wrong_

_Peter: it isn't anything against you though, you know that right?_

_Liz: Yeah, I get that_

_Liz: I hope you have someone to talk to though.  Everyone needs someone, especially kidnapping survivors_

_Peter: i_

_Peter: shit um i mean yeah, i guess that's true_

_Liz: I'll take that as a no then?_

_Peter: eh yeah_

_Liz: You can talk to me if you want.  I promise I'll try not to internalize it_

_Peter: pff okay_

_Peter: i'm not a very positive influence though, at least not right now_

_Liz: That's okay.  I can ignore the message if I can't handle it for some reason.  And it's not like we'll cross paths any time soon so you don't have to worry about my reactions or anything_

_Peter: making a pretty good argument there_

_Liz: That is the idea haha_

_Peter: i'll think about it?_

_Liz: Of course <3_

_Peter: hey liz?_

_Liz: Yes, Peter?_

_Peter: thank you_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sO you may have noticed I haven't really incorporated anything from the polls in this chapter. If anybody who hasn't voted yet might want to, go ahead, but with the next chapter everything should be cementing and there's no going back after that lol.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My goodness is that a chapter limit there.....Let's hope my planning for this thing works out... Yay for finishing the main build up to actual events too whoop whoop

May is out on her night shift when he invites Ned over.  It's a little early for dinner by their standards; for one reason or another it's become a habit for him and May to only eat after seven pm, usually more like eight.  A six o'clock dinner is rare in the Parker apartment, but that was when he got the urge to eat and he wasn't interested in passing it up.  Just because he didn't want food forced on him doesn't mean he doesn't want to eat at all.

It feels like a lot of pressure though.  He isn't sure why, but it was just another one of those things since his return.  Hence Ned's company.

Peter hears him coming before he knocks.  He also checks through the peep-hole three times before unlocking the door.  It's silly, but this is the first time someone has visited and between the anticipation of waiting for someone he knows to arrive and the ever-present feeling someone in a mask was going to burst in- it feels necessary.  If Ned has any suspicions, he doesn't let on.  Ned was still good about that, just like the last time.  He didn't argue when Peter asked him not to bring anything, didn't bring up how much his own parents wanted to check in.  They might have nagged about it but he was trying to be considerate for his friend, putting that above appeasing his family's concern.

He could be exaggerating.  Having known the Leeds for so long, Peter was pretty confident in his assumptions but he doesn't pretend to know what was happening in someone else's home; in their lives.  He just wants to remind himself to be appreciative of the company, even if he wasn't feeling great himself.

It’s not something he should have to think about.  Not something he ever reminded himself of before, but ever since the knock on the door there's been a familiar tingling at the back of Peter's neck that has him increasingly on edge and frustrated with that very fact itself.  Ned was harmless, kind. He's always been understanding of Peter's changing situation and resulting troubles.  He's never felt unsafe with him before.

Of course, that wasn't a new feeling these days, was it? Paranoid in normal situations, irritated with himself and weary of people he has no business being weary of.

At least he doesn’t lose his appetite.

It’s at the end of the meal that idle chatter about the drama at school and holiday plans tapers out and Ned sees this has an opportunity.

”So... Have you talked to Tony since you got back?”

Knowing his friend, and given how he raved about any conversation he got to have with the man before, it’s pretty much the elephant in the room.  Tony didn’t have anything to do with his escape, but he was involved in Peter’s decision to go home.  He had tried to help him in the end and even May was willing to invite him for dinner despite their disagreements.  He wonders, actually, if they were speaking behind his back now.  She had seemed so furious with his way of handling the situation before that it hadn’t occurred to Peter until now, but between his aunt finding out his secret and his going missing they had reached a good understanding.  What exactly they would have to talk about was the key factor; Tony couldn’t help either of them, not really. If he wanted to know how Peter was he could ask directly. Maybe it was just a stupid theory.

”Not really.” Peter answers, scraping the last of his mac and cheese onto his fork. “May’s asked if I wanted to see him, but he hasn’t reached out or anything.”

”Oh. Well, do you?”

He pauses just a moment before shrugging.

”Why not? I mean if you’re not ready that’s totally understandable, dude, but y'know..."

"Like I said, he hasn't reached out.  I'm not going to guilt him into hanging out with me because I don't have much else to do."

Ned frowns at that but doesn't argue.  Peter wished he would, not because of the topic itself but because he knows he would have before all of this happened.  Even Ned can't overlook how messed up Peter might be, no matter how good he was at pretending everything was normal still.

[...]

 _-12/09/17, 10:43 pm-_  

_Peter: hey are you awake?_

_Liz: Yeah, what's up?_

_Peter: i'm just really confused_

_Liz: What about?  Is everything okay?_

_Peter: technically_

_Peter: i mean_

_Peter: nothing happened.  nothing new anyway. and maybe that's the problem idk_

_Liz: I don't understand_

_Peter: neither do i tbh_

_Liz: Shorthand doesn't make me less concerned, Peter_

_Peter: sorry_

_Liz: :p_

_Peter: :)_

_Liz: Start from the beginning?_

_Peter: i don't know if that's a good idea_

_Liz: Why not?_

_Peter: you're going to think i'm crazy or stupid or probably both actually_

_Liz: I seriously doubt that_

_Peter: i didn't come home_

_Liz: Um what do you mean?_

_Peter: when i got out_

_Peter: let go_

_Peter: whatever_

_Peter: when i wasn't locked in a basement anymore i didn't go straight home_

_Liz: Oh... Where did you go then?_

_Peter: no where_

_Peter: i mean no where in particular.  i was in the area i just... i don't know.  maybe i thought they'd come for me again or maybe it just didn't feel real...it wasn't that long ago but i already have a hard time figuring out how i felt then._

_Liz: I didn't know they were still out there..._

There's a moment of stillness.  A pause in the conversation where Peter realizes that the only story he's told is the one he gave to the police, where he didn't have to fight for his life to get back to Queens.  There was no public announcement yet as far as he knew - not that he would - and no reporters knocking down the door.  _Under-wraps_.  The details wouldn't be released- he knows enough about police investigation and trusts the detective enough to know there wasn't some gruesome retelling of his story going to be put in papers without him telling it again himself.  There is a prickle of anxiety at the notion he could be wrong, but Peter is quick to squash it down.  Still, he thinks it best to keep the story the same across the board, even though that too brings an unpleasant feeling.

Liz was listening to his troubles.  They weren't exactly close before, and he'd let her down an awful lot in a short span before getting her father locked away.  Even if she didn't know it, lying to her now only felt like another betrayal on his part.

There was only so much he could do at the time though.

_Peter: yup._

_Peter: i don't know where or why, they just...weren't there one day._

_Liz: So it isn't a closed case, is it? The police are still looking?_

_Peter: yeah_

_Liz: I'm so sorry, Peter._

_Liz: Did you want to keep talking or...?_

_Peter: ...no_

_Peter: i'm sorry_

_Liz: What for??_

_Peter: i brought it up and it's kind of late and now i'm bailing_

_Liz: Peter, you went through something traumatic.  I can only imagine what happened and even my best case scenario is horrifying to think about. I don't expect it to be easy for you to talk about and you shouldn't either.  I'm sorry you couldn't talk about what else is bothering you tonight though._

_Peter: does being nice really come this easily to you or have you done reading on trauma victims recently?_

_Liz:  Maybe a bit of both?_

_Peter: wait are you serious?_

_Liz: I said you could talk to me! I wasn't going to leave you hanging if you took me up on it_

_Liz: And I'm still no where near expert level, AND to be fair a lot of this is kind of common sense if you ask me..._

_Peter: you're amazing, liz, you know that right?_

_Liz: I'm hardly amazing for wanting to be a good friend_

_Peter: we'll dig into that sometime too_

_Peter: i'm gonna go to bed_

_Peter: thanks_

 

The ceiling helped at first.  The ceiling instead of the closer confines of the second bunk.

The ceiling is still a ceiling.

Peter looks at it for what turns out to be another hour since putting his phone down, then gets out with blanket in tow.  It was almost undoubtedly a terrible idea; he should be turning over, trying to get comfortable in his own bed.  Getting up was already putting a damper in whatever chance for sleep he had.

In a way it had been easier the first few days back, because even though he only slept for a few hours at a time it at least added up.  It had a sense of routine, even.  Now, suddenly not being able to shut down enough was a hassle throwing off his entire sleep schedule again.

Sighing to himself, Peter wraps his blankets tightly around his shoulders and makes his way to the window.

May would be terrified if she found out.  Tony would be pissed, if only for worrying her.  She likely wouldn't know though, and his opinion shouldn't matter.  So Peter climbs up the wall and onto the rooftop and makes himself a bed out of webbing to lay in while he watches the stars.

Tony shouldn't be such a subject.  He shouldn't matter.  Not because he was a bad man, or because he had no part in Peter's life at all.  It wasn't as if he forgot everything Tony did for him, how much every bit of attention meant before.  The light shining on those events was different to what it was now.

He'd never been looking for a new father figure.  Peter was fourteen when Tony showed up; most of the work was done by Ben and May already, and she did an excellent job filling the shoes left behind with her husband's death.  He didn't need a new guardian.  He didn't need a new family.  He just wanted someone to be proud of him.  He met his idol- the one he looked up to the most and he was allowed to latch on.

He could be mad about what felt like lies, but in the end it was Peter's own fault for being a delusional child.

It isn't that Tony let him down by not coming to the rescue.  It's that Peter thought he would in the first place, and he wouldn't make those mistakes again.

There wasn't any reason for Tony to care- there wasn't reason for anyone besides May and maybe Ned to care.  He wouldn't lie to himself about that again.


End file.
